The Tyrone Junior Varsity Baseball Team opened its 2008 campaign on Wednesday afternoon at home against Philipsburg. Along with the Varsity squad, this team is very young with nearly all ninth graders in the starting line-up. On the other hand, Philipsburg’s JV team included a majority of 10th graders in its line-up.
After scoring one run in the first inning, Philipsburg capitalized on two Golden Eagle errors and a walk in the third inning to score three runs increasing their lead to 4-0 through 3 innings.
Jared Templeton scattered just two hits while striking out six and walking only two batters for the Eagles over the first three innings.
Austin Barefoot came in to relieve Templeton in the fourth inning and did not allow a run during the inning. In the bottom half of the inning, the Eagles came alive with the bats after Templeton’s fly out to left field, Austin Barefoot singled, then Derrick Dasher doubled to left field scoring Barefoot. Then A.J Welsh singled to right center scoring Dasher. Matt Romano came in to pinch run for Welsh and on the next pitch stole second base. Ian Murray then singled down the third base line to plate Romano. Murray then stole second on the next pitch and scored on an error from a ball hit by Korry Cowher to the Philipsburg 3rd basemen. At the end of the fourth inning it was all tied at a score of 4-4.
In the 5th inning, the Mounties pounded out five hits and had two walks to plate an additional six runs making the score 10-4. Drew Bryan, the Mounties shortstop, had one of those hits and for the game went 3-for-4. In the bottom half of the inning, the Eagles did not score a run and stranded two base runners. In fact, for the game, the Eagles left 12 men on base.
In the sixth inning, Trevor Jackson came in to relieve Barefoot on the mound for the Eagles. Jackson finished off the game facing seven batters in two innings, striking out four with no runs scored.
The Eagles managed to score one run in the sixth inning with Jordan Faretta scoring on Jeremy Miller’s triple to Left -Center Field and another in the seventh on Zachary Cothard’s single to Right Centerfield plating Robbie Marlette. The final score was Philipsburg 10 and Tyrone 6.
Colton Wrye earned the pitching victory on the mound for Philipsburg.
“ We stranded 12 base runners and managed to only pound out six hits,” commented voluntary head junior varsity coach Mark Jackson. “We were unable to get much going offensively with the exception of the 4th inning. With the exception of the 6-run 5th inning, our pitching was pretty good. I was really happy with the fact that our boys never quit. Even though we made several errors early, our defense was pretty good as well. In addition, we had several solid relays from the outfield to third base.”
“Many of the teams we will face this year will obviously have more 10th graders in their line-up than we will, but we feel very good about the talent pool that we have on this team and for that matter the entire program. I am sure we will face many challenges this year, but each game will make us better than we were before. We actually had nearly 50 boys in total out for both JV and Varsity baseball to start practice at the beginning of March. I personally attribute much of the increased interest in the program to the success of the VFW Teener League Program over the past several years.”
The JayVees next game is at Bellwood on Friday at 4:30 p.m.
