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Altoona captured the Mid-Penn Conference Commonwealth Division championship after beating Red Land, 4-3, in 11 innings on Monday at Mansion Park in high school baseball action.
The Mountain Lions, who finished 10-4 in Commonwealth play after starting the season 1-4, will face Mechanicsburg in the overall Mid-Penn championship tournament today in Hershey.
Altoona and Mechanicsburg play at 4 p.m. at Milton Hershey, and Camp Hill faces Greencastle-Antrim in the other semifinal at Hershey Stadium with the two winners meeting at 7 p.m. in the final at Hershey.
"We're pretty pumped,'' Altoona coach Tom Smith said. "This is huge. It means a lot for the whole school district. It's not easy competing in the Mid-Penn. We were picked eighth out of eight teams, but we started 1-4 and turned things around.''
Altoona and Cedar Cliff tied for the Commonwealth top spot, but the Lions won a tiebreaker based on power points.
On Monday, Evan Alwine's one-out sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 11th inning scored Sean Bettwy with the winning run. Bettwy had singled to lead off the inning.
Altoona held a 1-0 lead into the seventh before Red Land broke through with three runs. Altoona answered with two runs in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI groundout by Aidan Steinbugl and a two-out RBI single by Lucas Muffie.
Connor Blough pitched three scoreless innings to get the win.
RED LAND (3): Ebbert ss 501, Schmoyer 2b 401, Livingston ph 100, Artley lf 402, Peifer 1b 400, French c 401, Thomas dh 501, Shenk cf 000, Minnich 3b 210, Lubic p 200, Shirk rf 410, Keefer p-3b 311. Totals -- 40-3-7.
ALTOONA (4): Moyer 3b 400, Steinbugl ss 200, Muffie cf 501, Rhodes p-rf 500, Friewald 2b-p-2b 000, Riccio dh 500, Hileman lf 500, Bettwy c 511, Blough rf-p 411, Alwine 1b 321. Totals -- 38-4-4.
SCORE BY INNINGS
Red Land 000 000 300 00 -- 3 7 6
Altoona 001 000 200 01 -- 4 4 2
E--Peifer, Minnich 4, Keefer, Moyer, Steinbugl. 2B--Blough. RBI--Ebbert, Artley, Keefer, Steinbugl 2, Muffie, Alwine. WP--Blough. LP--Lubic. SO--Keefer 10, Lubic 4, Rhodes 4, Friewald 2, Blough 2. BB--Keefer 2, Lubic 1, Rhodes 4.
Records: Red Land (11-8); Altoona (13-5).