Mars leaves nothing to chance
Mars was looking to make a little history on Wednesday — and to rewrite some as well.
The Planets needed to secure a win against Knoch at Pullman Park to share the Section 4-AAA title with Hampton.
Mars assistant coach Chris Protho brought a plaque from a previous section title and told the kids ‘You want this. Go get it.'
Protho also brought the box scores from the Planets' previous games at Pullman Park against the Knights, a 15-0 loss two years ago and 15-1 last year.
“Kids don't forget that ... and we had the game summaries from the past two years up in the dugout just to remind them. That was (Protho's) idea and a good bit of motivating. They would see that in the dugout every time they walked by,” said Mars coach Brian Hobaugh.
The Planets would leave nothing to chance, jumping out to a 7-0 lead and went on to post an 11-2 victory.
“There was something on the line here,” Hobaugh said. “We wanted nothing less than to win the section. Our only loss was to Hampton (1-0 April 27).
“The kids were determined. We would share the section title, but the banner, the plaque, still says section champions,” Hobaugh added.
Blake Friday led off the first with a triple, then scored on a Nick Comport grounder. Ryan Wotus then smacked a home run off Mark Keck for an early 2-0 lead.
Mars made it a 5-0 lead in the second inning when Aaron Lozzi lined an RBI single and with two outs, Wotus hit a two-run triple.
An RBI double by Kevin Giallonardo and another run-scoring single by Lozzi in the third inning and the Planets were on their way.
Knoch was able to plate two runs in the bottom of the third inning off Tyler Dean when Jake Smith led off with a single and scored on an RBI triple by Keck.
One out later, Andy Fritz had a sacrifice fly to make it 7-2.
That was the only damage Dean allowed. He struck out eight batters, walked two and surrendered just three hits over six innings.
“That's what we expected from Tyler,” said Hobaugh. “He's our big man on the mound. We expect big games from him. He was nothing short of spectacular.”
“That's a great team over there,” said Knoch coach George Bradley. “They're one of the elite teams in Class AAA this year. They have a lot of weapons.
“I'm expecting them to go deep into the playoffs and I hope they do. That's two good teams in our section (Hampton),” Bradley added.
Mars would tack on three insurance runs in the sixth inning — an RBI single by Ryan Wotus and bases-loaded walks by Matt Eperesi and Ethan Lambert — and an RBI single by Comport in the seventh closed out the scoring.Bradley, in his first season, was pleased how his team fared all the way to the finish.“We knew we had a young team coming in,” said Bradley. “We knew we made it to the last game before we were eliminated.“It was a good night. We didn't quit. We had a little bit of a rally,” he added.<B>Notes:</B> This concluded Knoch's season while Mars will play at North Hills in a non-section game today before entering the WPIAL Class AAA playoffs ... The game marked the second night of use of Pullman Park's synthetic home plate area.<B>Mars 232 003 1 — 11 12 0Knoch 002 000 0 — 2 3 1W:</B> Tyler Dean 6 IP (8K, 2BB). <B>L:</B> Mark keck 1.1 IP (1K, 0BB).<B>Mars (14-1, 13-1):</B> Blake Friday 3B; Nick Comport 1B, 2 RBI; Ryan Wotus 1B, 3B, HR, 4 RBI; C.J. Weigand 1B; Matt Eperesi RBI; Ryan O'Connor 1B; Kevin Giallonardo 2-2B, RBI; Aaron Lozzi 2-1B, 2 RBI; Chris Wotus 1B; Ethan Lambert RBI<B>Knoch (7-12, 6-8):</B> Andy Fritz RBI; Nathan Junk 1B; Jake Smith 1B; Mark Keck 3B, RBI
