CRANBERRY TWP — Cranberry Township player-manager Bill Clinefelter had a clear game plan from the very beginning — challenge Mars to hit the ball deep.

It’s not the most ideal plan, but it worked as Cranberry defeated Mars 8-2 in Game 2 of the Eagle County baseball championship series Wednesday night at North Boundary Park.

“In the first inning when (Mars) had a deep fly ball and caught by our guy, theoretically they’re up 2-0,” Clinefelter said, referring to North Boundary Park’s larger field dimensions compared to Mars’ Callery Field.

The Cranberry win evens the best-of-five series at 1-1.

Mike Patsch got the win on the mound, throwing a complete game with a strikeout and two walks, but his off-speed style of pitching encouraged Mars to swing for the fence.

“That’s just Mike’s game,” Clinefelter said. “He’s the off-speed guy with the junk balls and as a hitter, you’ve got to be patient and some guys want to be aggressive and it worked in his favor.”

Cranberry drew first blood off an RBI single from Justin Stewart in the first, followed up by three runs in the second to take 4-0 lead after two innings.

In the top half of the third, Mars fought back with its first run of the game, but Cranberry quickly answered with two more in the bottom half of the inning to extend its lead to five.

“We didn’t hit the ball very good today,” Mars player-manager Brendan Malone said. “The first three innings we had our lead-off guy on and couldn’t do anything after that.”

Cranberry added two more runs in the fourth and Mars was only able to muster one more run in the sixth, allowing Cranberry to take home the six-run victory.

“We just need to get off to a better start,” Malone said. “We’ll have our No. 1 guy back on the mound (Matt DeSalvo) at home and we’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”

DeSalvo was a big force for Mars in Game 1, with seven strikeouts and a pair of walks through seven innings.

Stewart lead the way for Cranberry at the plate in Game 2, going 3-for-4 with two singles and a double, while Nash Matson collected a pair of singles.

The series will now shift back home for Mars at Callery Field, where Cranberry lost Game 1 on Monday 10-1.

“It’ll be tough,” Clinefelter said. “Smaller field and that’s how they play, they’re built for that. That’s just the unfortunate thing — when you’re the home team, you host three of the five games and they earned that right.”

Game 3 will be Thursday starting at 6 p.m.

Mars 001 001 0 — 2 5 3

Cranberry 132 200 x — 8 9 0

W: Mike Patsch 7IP (1K, 2BB). L: Jim Devine 2.2IP (5K, 3BB).

Mars: Dan Penberthy 1B, Nate Thimons 1B, Brian Slavicek 2B

Cranberry: Justin Stewart 2-1B, 2B, Nash Matson 2-1B, Ben Murray 1B

Thursday: Cranberry at Mars, 6 p.m. at Callery Field