French Creek Valley takes first game of CVAL title series

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July 14, 2012

French Creek Valley takes first game of CVAL title series

By Pete Chiodo Meadville Tribune The Meadville Tribune Sat Jul 14, 2012, 07:00 AM EDT

SAEGERTOWN — French Creek Valley is one win away from grabbing its fourth straight Crawford/Venango American Legion baseball title, after rallying for a 7-6 win over Meadville in the opening round of the league’s best-of-three championship series, Friday at the Saegertown American Legion’s Ed Acker Field.

The teams reunite today at 11 a.m. back at ‘The Ack.’ FCV will look to close out the series. Meadville will aim to tie it up and bring the third game home to Eldred Glen.

Both teams will move to next weekend’s Region 8 tournament at St. Marys. Yet both still want that CVAL crown.

“One more to go,” said FCV head coach Brandon Crum. “I’m not sure what kind of weight it has as far as seeding down at St. Marys. But I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t get that one seed. Our thought is, we have to win this no matter what.”

FCV (24-1) was trailing 6-2 going into the sixth inning. The Creekers then exploded for five runs on four hits and three Meadville errors.

Hunter Johnston reached on an error and scored on a sacrifice by Adam Bronson. Kyle Wise singled and scored on a hit by Austin Scere. Tyler Walters drew a walk. And he and Scere scored on a two-run single by Kyle McCray. McCray would also score on an error.

“We came out flat off the bats,” said Crum. “We’ve seen a lot of slow pitching the last week and a half and we’re having a tough time keeping our hands back.

“(The sixth inning) was crucial. Meadville had just scored four a couple innings before that. We had to match that big inning.”

Wise was 2-for-4 with a pair of runs scored to lead FCV at the plate. Ryan Paden was 2-for-3. Walters was 1-for-1 with an RBI. He was also walked four times in the game.

FCV also got a workhorse effort out of starting pitcher Luke Carter. He pitched eight innings and gave up six runs (only one earned, FCV had four errors as well) on eight hits and two walks. Carter also struck out 10.

“Luke pitched well the whole game,” said Crum. “We just couldn’t get the hop a couple times. We couldn’t make a couple plays here and there.”

Alex Glatch had a solid game on offense for Meadville. He was 3-for-4 with a double, two runs scored and an RBI. He singled and scored on a Corey Lynn base hit in the third inning. Then he doubled in a run and scored in fourth.

Meadville scored four runs in that fourth inning. Zack Grill led it off with a double to left-center. Corey Stainbrook brought Grill in with a single. Glatch had his double with two outs to score Stainbrook. Matt Thompson got on with a single. Then an FCV error allowed Glatch to score. And Lynn drove Thompson in with his second RBI single of the day.

“Normally we wait around until the last couple innings to do something,” said Meadville manager Rob Shartle. “And they really shocked me, putting four up in the fourth.

“But we said to them, no matter how much we get up on these guys, we can’t just sit down. This is the type of team that will come back at you. And they did.”

Meadville now led 6-2. But FCV would strike back a couple innings later.

“That one inning really killed us,” said Shartle. “You know, we went out and we talked to our players after the game. And it took me a minute to find a word to use. So I ask them what they thought would describe the game and they said 'disappointing.'

“And that’s what it was — disappointing."

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French Creek Valley takes first game of CVAL title series

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