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Park wins sectional crown over Brooke

WELLSBURG — Wheeling Park coach Mike McLeod makes no secret that getting to the state baseball tournament in Charleston is the goal each and every year, no matter what his roster looks like.

The first step in that quest is complete as the Patriots claimed another sectional title with a 9-3 victory against Brooke on Thursday in a Class AAA Region 1, Section 1 final.

Despite the win, McLeod expects plenty of improvement from his squad before the regional series against either Morgantown or University set to begin May 21.

“It was raggedy, but we battled and in order to get where we want to go, we have a lot more work to do,” McLeod said. “It is the little things that bother me. But we won, it looks good in the newspaper and they can take all the pictures with the plaque they want, but we have a lot of stuff we need to work on.

“That being said, the kids hit the ball hard. Pitching was excellent. We started a freshman — Dylan Gongola — that has been coming up back and forth, and he did a phenomenal job. He got us off to a great start.”

Gongola looked like anything but a freshman, pitching four scoreless innings and allowing one hit, a double to Joe Dawson in the fourth.

The freshman righty struck out five.

“Anyone that is in this dugout, we count on regardless of what grade they are in,” McLeod said. “The nice thing about coaching at Wheeling Park is that we get the best athletes in the city and it doesn’t matter whether you are a freshman or sophomore. It was an easy decision. He is better than a lot of juniors and seniors you see.”

His mound opponent, another freshman in Andrew Coursin, didn’t have the best start and the Patriots took advantage.

Playing their fourth straight day, Brooke coach Ron Ujcich had to dig deeper into his rotation and while Wednesday night it worked in a victory against John Marshall, this time things went bad in a hurry.

Wheeling Park (18-6) batted around in the second inning. Brett Donohew got the scoring started with a two-run single, followed by a RBI double from Zach Kahle and a two-run double by Trevor Thomas to make it 5-0 and chase Coursin from the contest.

“We didn’t play our best game,” Ujcich said. “We talked to the kids about leaving it out there and we had three or four errors that gave them extra outs. When you play a good team, you can’t give extra outs and that is what we did.

“We kept digging ourselves a hole. We fought to this point, but we were a little tired, a little worn out but it is what it is. You have to come back and we didn’t make the simple plays we needed to.

“We were at the tail end of what we had left (pitching). We had to start a freshman (Wednesday) and tried to start a freshman (Thursday). He was effective as long he kept the ball down. He started getting the ball up and got in trouble and we had to get him out of there.”

Dawson came on and recorded the final two outs of the inning, also pitching the remainder of the game. But by then, the damage had been done.

Dawson was able to keep the Patriots lineup quiet for the most part, but Donohew wasn’t done with his day.

The senior first baseman crushed a Dawson offering deep over the right-field fence (320 feet) and trotted to home plate, receiving a big ovation from his coaches, teammates and the Park faithful for his first career home run.

The two-run blast put Park in front, 7-0.

“It was my first one ever and I was as happy as everyone else,” Donohew said. “I heard my grandma in the crowd screaming. I think she almost had a heart attack.

“It was dead down the pike, my eyes got big and I swung hard. Brooke is a big rival we have and beating them is a special feeling.”

Brooke (13-12) scored three runs in the top of the sixth, two coming from a single by Justin Pennybacker and the other off a throwing error.

Wheeling Park scored its final runs in the home half of the inning, one coming off an error and the other a wild pitch.

Wheeling Park 9, Brooke 3

Brooke 0-0-0 0-0-3 0 — 3 7 6

Wheeling Park 0-5-0 0-2-2 x — 9 7 1

B: Coursin lp (0SO, 2W), Dawson (2)(5SO, 4W) and Dawson, Langley (2). Dawson S, D; Pennybacker S, 2rbi.

W: Gongola (5SO, 1W), Jones wp (5)(1SO, 2W), Thomas (6)(2SO, 0W) and Mattern. Kahle S, D, rbi; Thomas S, D, 2rbi; Donohew S, HR, 4rbi.

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