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Baseball: Raiders drop home opener to Tyrone, 4-3

By SHAREIK FLOWERS

sflowers@lockhaven.com

BELLEFONTE- The Red Raiders jumped out to an early 3-0 lead over the visiting Tyrone Golden Eagles, but as the game began to unravel, and the temperature proceeded to drop, Bellefonte’s offense fizzled out.

Tyrone ended the game on a 4-0 rally to bounce back and hand Bellefonte a season-opening loss, 4-3.

“Tyrone just came out and they played hard,” Bellefonte coach Jon Clark said. “We had some opportunities and didn’t capitalize. And maybe we weren’t quite ready for a few situations.”

Despite the 1-run disadvantage, Bellefonte out-hit Tyrone 8-5. Bobby Marsh led the Raiders hitting 2-for-4 with an RBI, while CJ Funk chipped in another hit and an RBI.

“I liked our approach at the plate,” Clark said. “We didn’t swing at a lot of bad pitches. We hit the ball but we could’ve made better contact. ”

Bellefonte pitcher Ashton Wetzler allowed a leadoff walk to Andrew Pearson in the first, but responded with a pair of strikeouts and a groundout to exit the inning. CJ Funk’s RBI-double and and Bobby Marsh’s RBI-single lifted Bellefonte to a 2-0 lead in the back half of the inning.

Dylan Young smacked an RBI-single into right field to extend Bellefonte’s lead, 3-0 in the second. But the Raiders failed to capitalize with the bases loaded as Bobby Marsh grounded out to first to end the inning.

Bellefonte’s inability to seize scoring opportunities was costly. Along with three runners stranded on base in the second, twice the Red Raiders were thrown out at home–which left a pair of runs off the board.

“Heck I’ve never had a runner thrown out at home, and I had two guys thrown out at home,” Clark said. “But I like to be aggressive in situations early in the game. I thought we had good turns going around third base, but I’ll be honest their guys threw strikes from left field and right field. They threw two brilliant balls and that caught us off guard.”

Tyrone eased back into the game in the third. Kevin Lehner smacked an RBI-single off the center field fence to cut Bellefonte’s lead, 3-1. Tyrone added another run in the sixth before Lehner smacked a 2-run single to give Tyrone a 4-3 lead. The Golden Eagles secured the win in the seventh after Bobby Marsh hit a pop-up behind home plate to end the game.

“Losing stinks,” Clark said. “But sometime it shows you what you need to work on to get better.”

Bellefonte rotated between a trio of pitchers as Ashton Wetzler, CJ Funk and freshman Derek Fravel each saw time on the mound. Weztler threw a game-high four strikeouts and Fravel threw a pair of strikeouts in his first stint as a varsity athlete.

“I thought Derek came in and gave us some good, quality innings,” Clark said. “And CJ is always someone we’re looking to get a good inning out of.

“But the thing we have to manage across the board is throwing more strikes. We can’t be walking guys. By throwing more strikes we’ll be able to push ourselves further into the game. ”

Bellefonte (0-1) returns Thursday with an away matchup versus Philipsburg-Osceola.

“They always have good, quality players,” Clark said of the Mountaineers. “They have guys who work hard, and they always have a team that seems ready to go.”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E

TY 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 4 5 2

BF 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 8 1

Notable Hitters

Tyrone: Kevin Lehner 2-3 with 3 RBIs, Rodney Shultz 1-3 with 1 RBI

Bellefonte: Bobby Marsh 2-4 with 1 RBI, CJ Funk 1-3 with 1 RBI, and Dylan Young 1-3 and 1 RBI

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