Beaver wins thrilling first round playoff game 7-6
Beaver Baseball wins the first round playoff game 7-6 in thrilling fashion.
By: Ty Cole
A high intensity playoff game would prove to be in Beaver's favor as they beat Penn State Brandywine 7-6 to advance to the next round. Beaver would score two runs in the first three innings off a Sophomore Duncan Miklos (Beaver Falls, PA/Blackhawk) single which scored Senior Derek Bozic (Beaver Falls, PA/Beaver Falls) putting Beaver up 1-0. Junior Blaise McCarty (Beaver Falls, PA/Riverside) singled in Junior Jake Debo (New Brighton, PA/New Brighton) making the score 2-0 going into the fourth inning. Junior Steve Antolic (Freedom, PA/Ambridge) would would single in Debo. Bozic singled in Antolic making the score 4-0. Junior Nick Casasanta (Moon Twp., PA/Moon) was the starting pitcher for Beaver. Casasanta would not give up a run until the bottom of the fifth inning giving up two making the score 4-2 going into the top of the sixth.
Senior Tyler Thellman (Beaver Falls, PA/Blackhawk) and Debo would get on base to start the sixth inning. Casasanta would come up with one out. Casasanta ripped a ball over the fence hitting a light pole on the other side of the fence. Debo and Thellman start trotting around the bases thinking it was a home run along with everyone else. But the umpires would rule that it never went out of the park on a very controversial call sending Casasanta to second and Debo being thrown out at home. Bozic doubled scoring Casasanta giving Beaver the lead 6-3 going into the top of the seventh.
Debo reached base on an error scoring Thellman making the score 7-3 going into the bottom of the seventh. Casasanta would come out of the game leaving two runners on. Sophomore Daniel Vanderslice (Sharon, PA/Sharon) pitched the rest of the seventh making things interesting giving up three runs but he got the save for Beaver winning the game 7-6.
Debo, Antolic, and Bozic all had three hits leading the Beaver offense. Bozic added two rbis to lead the team.
Casasanta threw six innings striking out seven throwing a gem in the first playoff game. Vanderslice recorded the save for his first save of the year.
Beaver advances to the second round of the playoffs and will face Penn State Dubois tomorrow at Showers Field game time starting at 1:30 p.m.