1 week Ago By Dave Seamon
In a Wyoming Valley Conference baseball game where only a handful of plays made the difference between victory and defeat, one stood out in Hazleton Area’s 3-2 win over host Crestwood on Friday. The Comets were poised to tie the game at 3 on Josh Mylet’s double with a runner on first base in the bottom of the sixth inning. However, Cougars’ centerfielder James Festa tracked the ball in the outfield and threw to catcher Nick Ledger to cut down pinch runner Robert Reed at home for the second out of the inning.
“Honestly, I was surprised that he was coming,” Ledger said afterward. “I looked over at the coach and he was stopping him, but he kept coming. I was just looking to make a good catch and I got him.
I was ready for the moment.” Chris Peters came on in relief of AJ Collevechio for Hazleton Area (5–2, 4-1 WVC) to get a strikeout for the inning-ender and then fan two more Crestwood batters in he seventh for his second save in three days. Runs were hard to come by for both teams.
The Cougars’ Shea Higgins delivered an RBI single off Crestwood starter Caleb McManus in the top of the first, only to have the Comets’ Connor Wagaman poke his own run-scoring single off Hazleton Area starter Jack Esposito in the bottom half. Hazleton Area reclaimed the lead on freshman Chris Knelly’s RBI single in he fourth, but the Comets again pulled even after scoring on a passed ball in the bottom of the inning. In the fifth, Higgins plated the eventual winning run on a groundout.
Higgins, Knelly, Logan Hearity and Ryan Racho accounted for Hazleton Area’s four base hits, all singles. Hearity and Racho each stole two bases. Festa and Ryan Schmidt both had one theft.
Chase Galella paced the Comets (3-5, 1-3) with a double and single. Zack Stavish contributed two singles; Mylet doubled and Wagaman and Dylan Domzalski chipped in a single apiece. Esposito, a sophomore, worked the first three innings on the mound for the Cougars, striking out three and walking one.
Collevechio took the ball for the next two and two-thirds innings, earning the win after whiffing three and walking one. Peters finished with three strikeouts in his one-plus innings. McManus pitched well in defeat with three strikeouts and four walks over five innings.
Jaxson Fedak came on in the sixth to punch out two Cougars and walk two others. Hazleton Area is scheduled to play host to Parkland in a non-league game on Saturday at noon. The Cougars also will entertain Dallas on Tuesday in WVC action.
The Comets’ non-league home contest against Valley View that was slated for Saturday has been pushed back to May 13. They will visit Berwick on Tuesday. Hazleton Area (5-2, 4-1) 100 110 0 — 3 4 0 Crestwood (3-5, 1-3) 100 100 0 — 2 7 2 Esposito, Collevechio (4), Peters (6) and Ledger; McManus, Fedak (6) and Mylet.
W — Collevechio. L — McManus. Sv — Peters.
