Baseball

Dragons catch fire in 3rd in victory

By Michael Boytim

mboytim@altoonamirror.com

MARTINSBURG -- Huntingdon played with fire the first two innings of its District 6 Class 3A high school baseball semifinal game at Central on Wednesday.

The Scarlet Dragons finally burned the Bearcats in the third.

After the first two batters reached in both the first and second inning resulting in no runs for Central, the Dragons scored five in the bottom of the third inning highlighted by a Jay Hoenstine three-run triple in an eventual 10-0, five inning win.

"Jay came up with a big hit there," said A.J. Hoenstine, Central's coach and Jay's father. "He's kind of a happy-go-lucky kid. I don't know if he's a typical coach's kid. He just goes out there and smiles and flies around and doesn't really feel pressure. He really came up clutch there."

With Central leading 2-0 but with two outs and the bases loaded, Hoenstine and his calm demeanor turned out to be the perfect person to be at the plate. The right-handed hitter drove a deep shot to the opposite field that easily cleared the outfielder's head, who was playing in. With one swing of the bat, it was 5-0.

"I knew I hit it pretty good," Jay Hoenstine said. "I saw him having to go back on it pretty good. It's awesome to make it back (to the District 6 title game) after falling short last year. This was the biggest game of the year."

The five runs were more than enough for Central starting pitcher Mason Sparks, who pitched five shutout innings and allowed just two hits.

"Mason has great stuff and a very bright future if he keeps working," A.J. Hoenstine said. "He hasn't had the best control in some games this year, but I talked to him after last Thursday's game and asked him if he would be ready to go. He said he's got it, and he lived up to his word."

Sparks lost that control just once on Wednesday when he walked three straight Huntingdon batters with two outs in the top of the fifth inning to load the bases with the Dragons up, 6-0.

Hoenstine visited the mound and had a quick talk with his ace.

"I told him these are the moments you live for," A.J. Hoenstine said. "He was facing their No. 3 hitter. I told him the ball was his and he wanted it and that let's go win a game, and that's what he did. I'm proud of him."

One pitcher later, Sparks got Ashton Steele to ground out back to the mound and end the threat.

"We faced a good arm," Huntingdon coach Jon Mykut said. "The kid threw a very good game. We had a couple of opportunities, and he dug deep, got tough and got out of those innings."

Though Central didn't score those first two innings, the Dragons drove Steele's pitch count up and eventually forced the Bearcats' ace out of the game.

"I wasn't happy with the first two innings having guys on first and second with nobody out and not scoring," A.J. Hoenstine said. "But I did think we had good at bats against a good pitcher, and we were able to get him out of the game in the fourth."

Central put an end to the game in the bottom of the fifth inning with five straight hits by Wyatt Dilling, Hoenstine, Mason Byler, Hunter Smith and Griffin Snowberger, who had an infield single that scored Smith to end the game.

"It's great to get back there after missing it last year," Smith said. "We had a really good performance today by everyone. The bottom of our lineup really came through today. It was a good team effort."

Smith finished 3-for-4, scored twice, had a pair of doubles and drove in two runs. Hoenstine had four RBIs, and Dilling was 2-for-2 with an RBI and scored twice.

Huntingdon got base hits from Lincoln Miller and Will Wallen and finished the season 10-11. The sixth-seeded Bearcats upset Philipsburg-Osceola, 9-1, in the quarterfinals.

"Our seniors, we wish them the best," Mykut said. "They gave us a solid season. We showed a lot of grit and a lot of resolve coming back. We had a point in time where we lost five or six games in a row. A lot of them were close. We could have folded our tents and called it a year, but they battled back and beat a good Philipsburg team last week. Today just wasn't our best game."

Central will play the winner of today's Central Cambria at Forest Hills semifinal in the District 6 championship game next Wednesday at Vets Field at 7 p.m.

"District championships are nice," A.J. Hoenstine said. "But this is the big game you need to win to get into the state playoffs where anything can happen there. We're happy with that, and we're going to go try and win a district championship, but being in the state playoffs is great, because anything can happen."

HUNTINGDON (0): Mykut cf-p-cf 200, Sheffield lf 200, Steele p-ss-3b 200, G. Woodward 1b 200, Miller 3b-p 201, B. Woodward c 200, Simpson ss 000, Moore cf 000, Bryson dh 200, Foster 2b 200, Wallen rf 101. Totals -- 18-0-2.

CENTRAL (10): Smith 1b 423, Snowberger ss 301, Dionis rf 211, Sparks p 000, McNichol dh 211, Marko c 200, Loucks cr 010, Black cf 110, Dilling 3b 222, Hoenstine 2b 312, Byler lf 301, Moushlian pr 010. Totals -- 22-10-11.

SCORE BY INNINGS

Huntingdon 000 00X X--0 2 1

Central 005 14X X--10 11 1

E--G. Woodward, Hoenstine. 2B--Smith 2, McNichol. 3B--Hoenstine. RBI--Hoenstine 4, Smith 2, Snowberger, Dionis, Dilling.

PITCHING

Huntingdon: Steele (L)–3 2/3IP, 6H, 4BB, 3HBP, 6R, 6ER, 94 pitches. Mykut--1/3IP, 4H, 0BB, 0K, 4R, 4ER, 22 pitches. Miller--0IP, 1H, 0BB, 0K, 0R, 0ER, 3 pitches.

Central: Sparks (W)–5 IP, 2H, 3BB, 5K, 0R, 0ER, 89 pitches.

Umpires: Matt Cursio (HP); Bill Wolf (1B); Jay Negri (3B).

Records: Huntingdon (10-11); Central (16-6).