Stow Baseball Team Defeats Cardinal Mooney 4-3 with Game-Tying Runner on Base

The rain clouds cleared and for a few innings the sun actually came out as traveled to Youngstown on Thursday and defeated Cardinal Mooney 4-3 at Bob Cene Park.

The Bulldog offense looked as bright as their new yellow jerseys they wore for the game and they jumped to an early lead in the first inning. Stow got two runners on base when Junior shortstop Kyle Scelza walked and Senior catcher Ryan Damschroder was safe on a throwing error.

Clean up hitter senior third baseman Ryan Yurkschatt stepped up with an RBI single to start the scoring. Senior center fielder Jason McPeek then followed with a deep drive resulting in a triple that drove in two runs. As he cruised into third base, the throw from the outfield was high sailing into the Stow dugout and he was able to come in and score as well, giving the Bulldogs a 4-0 lead.

Still in the first inning with two outs, sophomore DH Greg Grecco delivered a single. Senior second baseman Anthony Merlene was safe on an error and senior outfielder Klayton Roach reached on a single loading the bases. However, Cardinal Mooney was able to end the inning and the threat on a ground out.

Senior right hander Zack Ehrhardt took the mound for Stow and held the Cardinal Mooney team in check for five innings to get the win. Ehrhardt struck out four and walked four, and allowed three hits. While Cardinal Mooney worked back into the game having scored runs and threatened in several innings, Ehrhardt kept them at bay with key strike outs to end the second, fourth and fifth innings.

While the Stow offense started strong, the Cardinal Mooney right hander recovered and settled in. After a Ryan Damschroder single in the second inning, the last 17 Stow batters were retired in order to complete the ballgame.

After five innings with Stow holding onto a 4-3 lead junior lefty Dan Garner came in for his second relief appearance of the season.

In the sixth inning, with an 0-1 count, Garner's second pitch broke inside hitting the Cardinal Mooney batter. With the game-tying run now on first base, Garner struck out the next batter to get one out. During the next at bat, after getting the sign from junior catcher Chris Choler, Garner fired the ball to senior Brian Clark who had come in to play first base. Clark ran the trapped runner to second base and then Scelza, covering second, sent the Mooney runner scampering back to first and fired the ball to Garner who covered first and tagged him out.

That would be Cardinal Mooney's last threat as Garner retired the last batter of the sixth inning on a fly ball. Cardinal Mooney then went down in order on three fly ball outs including a nice running catch by the second baseman Merlene in shallow right field to steal a hit. With the Stow victory, Garner got his first save of the season. While Jason McPeek delivered the big hit of the game, he also was busy in the field making eight different plays in center field to record outs.

Stow is scheduled to play a make up game with Solon at home April 29.

Editor's note: Dave Garner submitted information for this story.