Cochranton storms into CVAL final

By Pete Chiodo

SAEGERTOWN — Cochranton is playing some outstanding ball right now.

That’s, really, all that needs to be said. There are a lot of words following this sentence, but they’re essentially superfluous. The bottom line is this: The Cochranton American Legion baseball team is playing some outstanding ball right now.

Here’s Cochranton — the fifth seed out of the five-team Crawford/Venango American Legion baseball league. The Blues needed to win a play-in game just to get into the championship tournament, which they did, downing No. 4 seed Franklin 5-3 on Thursday.

That win matched Cochranton up with the league’s top seed, French Creek Valley, in the tournament’s first round. And so Cochranton dispatches French Creek Valley to the loser’s bracket, beating the top seed 8-4 on Friday.

This brings us to Saturday at Ed Acker Field. It’s Cochranton — the fifth seed, remember — against second-seed Meadville. Cochranton dumps Meadville 7-5. Cochranton finds itself in today’s championship game.

Why?

Because Cochranton is playing some outstanding baseball right now.

“We finally started hitting,” said Cochranton’s Zach Staudt. “We’ve been in a slump all summer long. We came into this thing batting something like .240 as a team.”

It was .223, actually.

“Our biggest problem was that we had no offense,” said Bluebirds coach Randy Staudt. “Our fielding percentage was the highest its been ever since I’ve been keeping stats here. Our team ERA was decent. So the only reason we couldn’t win games was that we couldn’t score.”

Piling it on; for yesterday’s game Cochranton was facing Meadville pitcher Ben Lowmaster, who had already fired two no-hitters at Cochranton this season.

Yet, the bubble finally burst in the first inning as Cochranton jumped on Lowmaster and the Red Dogs for five runs on four hits.

Cochranton loaded the bases on a pair of walks and an error. And Zach Staudt shook off the 14-inning Lowmaster curse with a single to left, driving in a run. Mikel Boughner followed with a single to the right side, driving in another run.

With one out, Dalton Pence brought two home with a single to right. And Zac Culbertson kept the party going with an RBI single to left.

Needless to say, Cochranton’s pitcher Cody Northcott liked what he saw.

“I didn’t even throw a pitch and already we had a 5-0 lead,” he said. “That definitely takes a lot of pressure off.”

Northcott went on to pitch a complete game for the win, allowing five runs on five hits while walking five and striking out three.

This, after he pitched four innings in the win over Franklin on Thursday.

“Cody really toughed it out for us,” said Randy Staudt.

“The last inning (on Saturday) was pretty hard,” said Northcott. “But we really wanted this one. We had to play in the play-in game. And now we’re in the championship game.”

Cochranton chalked up the decisive two runs in the second inning. With one out, catcher Craig Garofola hit a two-base gapper to left-center. Zach Staudt followed and went yard — 0-1 count, left field, two runs scored.

“It was right around thigh high,” said Staudt. I’ve been in a slump lately too, so I was just trying to hit line drives. I guess that’s what you get when you try to hit line drives.”

Lowmaster and the Meadville defense kept Cochranton off the scoreboard the rest of the way. Meanwhile, the offense tried to dig its way out of the hole — and came close to doing so.

Dillon Tabar, for example, was 2-for-3 with a two-run double in the third. Kyle Unice singled and scored in the fourth. Boomer Schleifer scored on an error in the sixth. And, down by two, Meadville got the first two batters on board to start the bottom of the seventh. But Northcott and the Cochranton “D” got out of the jam.

The loss sent Meadville to yesterday’s elimination game against French Creek Valley.

Pete Chiodo can be reached at 724-6370 ext. 275 or by e-mail at pchiodo@meadvilletribune.com.