Hornets finish third in Montoursville Tournament

By: Ed Weaver | PIAA District IV | May 21, 2012

The Wellsboro Varsity baseball team competed in the Montoursville Tournament over the weekend and took home third place.

In the first game of the tournament, the Hornets lost to Milton, 11-2. The game was tied at 2-2 after the second inning due in large part to the center field play of Milton. In both the first and second innings, the Hornets were robbed of hits that would have driven in multiple runs. Costly mental errors followed that gave Milton the opportunity to take and expand a lead.

"We continue to beat ourselves. It's one thing to have errors in the field that resulted from effort, but having pop ups drop because we don't communicate or having them drop because we did not sprint to the spot is frustrating to watch," said head coach Philip Prough. "On too many plays we have too many kids watching the game.

"If you take the pop-up examples, they are not recorded as errors in the book because, technically, none of our fielders touched it with their gloves. But those are huge mental errors being made by veteran players," continued Prough.

"Milton is a good team. I don't take anything away from them in their victory."

Senior Pat Parsons led the Hornets offensively going 2-4. Matt Reese, Billy Sell, Brandon Owlett, Dylan Prough, Nick Callahan, Brian Doty, and Thomas Johnston added one each with Callahan's being a double. Johnston took the loss on the game.

In the second game, Wellsboro faced NTL rival Mansfield and beat the Tigers, 6-5 in six innings. Mansfield was ahead for the entire game until the last inning when the Hornets posted 4 runs to win the game.

"The game had both teams switching up their line up and playing kids in different spots. We both knew it was a meaningless game from a standings viewpoint, but it's still nice to beat one of your rivals," said Prough. "I can't say there was a lot of focus for either team. We wanted to give some of our starters some time off and we were able to do that, so it worked out for us. Fortunately for us, our bench is just as talented and they showed that again today."

Reese led the Hornets going 2-3. Dan Saniga, Owlett and Connor Coolidge added doubles to the list, Coolidge's being a 2-run, walk-off hit to end the game.

Senior Pat Herres pitched 5 innings and Reese ended the game in the sixth to collect the win.

The Hornets begin District 4 play this week as they host Montoursville on Tuesday, May 22, at 4:30 p.m.

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