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Post 33’s Boggess shuts down Post 86

STEUBENVILLE — Trevor Boggess took care of the pitching, while his teammates took care of the rest.

Boggess pitched seven strong innings, leading the Jefferson County Post 33 Legion baseball team to a 5-0 victory against Toronto Post 86 Wednesday evening at Vaccaro Field.

“Boggess pitched phenomenal,” Jefferson County (33-7) head coach Anthony Pierro said. “We let him stay in there. He gave up some hits, but he was able to pitch out of some jams. He’s tough. We want guys to face adversity, and we want to see how they will handle adversity. He handled it well. When they hit the ball, our defense made the plays behind him.”

Boggess struck out four, walked three and gave up seven hits en route to the shutout victory.

Post 33 produced five runs on 10 hits, while playing a clean game defensively.

“We have been stressing defense,” Pierro said. “Our last couple of games have been sloppy. We want to clean things up defensively.”

A hit or two could have changed the game for Toronto, but Post 86 was unable to deliver with runners in scoring position.

“Like I have been saying all season, we are a plug-and-play team,” Toronto (3-8) head coach Steve Sninchak said. “We played right with them.”

Kobe Herrick took the loss for Toronto. He struck out four, walked three and allowed five runs on 10 hits en route to pitching a complete game.

“Kobe pitched a real-nice game,” Sninchak said. “They were able to just piece together some hits, and they took advantage of a few mistakes on our part. We just could not get that hit when we had runners on base.”

Toronto had chances to score, but Post 86 was unable to breakthrough. In one inning, the visitors had runners on first and third with no outs and did not score. In another inning, they had the bases loaded with no outs and were unable to score.

“One of those was a line drive,” Sninchak said about not sending the runner from third on fly balls with less than two outs. “As a coach, those things happen. You have to make that choice (whether to send the runner or not.)”

Three players recorded RBIs for Jefferson County, with the other two runs scoring on a throwing error and a wild pitch. Anthony Sinicropi singled three times, while Alec McBane belted a run-scoring double and added a base hit.

“We had a lot of line drives,” Pierro said. “When we hit ground balls, we put pressure on the other teams. When we are able to put pressure on teams that usually leads to success for us. We want to keep this going as we head into the tournament.”

Also for the victors, Luke Zorne collected an RBI double. Clayton Criss contributed a run-scoring single. Andrew Kinney, George Ash and Klay Cottis all tallied a base hit.

Cole Bodnar delivered a pair of doubles to lead the way for Post 86. Conrad Gump delivered a pair of singles, while Johnny Marelli, Jory Clapham, Riley Watson and Herrick all recorded a base hit.

“We couldn’t get the hit we needed in three or four innings,” Sninchak said. “Had we gotten one of those hits, it could have been a different ballgame. We were never out of it.”

In the home half of the third inning, Sinicropi singled and scored on Zorne’s double to give Post 33 a 1-0 lead.

Jefferson County plated a pair of runs in the fourth to extend its lead. Ash drew a walk to start the inning, and he scored on McBane’s double to increase Jefferson County’s advantage to 2-0. McBane ended up scoring on a wild pitch to put the hosts out in front by three.

“A couple of times we weren’t able to come through with a timely hit,” Pierro said.

“When you get runners on base, you hope you are able to get a timely hit. When you do that, you are able to put pressure on the other team, and we were able to do that today.”

Sinicropi, who singled all three times from the leadoff spot, singled to start the fifth and scored on RBI single by Criss to make it 4-0.

Kinney singled to start the sixth and advanced to second on a base hit by Ash. With McBane at the plate, Kinney took off and tried to steal third base. The throw was off target and ended up going into left field, allowing Kinney to score his team’s fifth run.

Sinicropi, who has spent the majority of the season as the team’s No. 2 hitter, was moved up to the top spot, as usual leadoff man Noah Fayak was moved down to the cleanup spot.

“We wanted to take a little bit of pressure off of Noah,” Pierro said. “He has been barreling up the baseball, but he has not been getting anything out of it. We put him in the No. 4 hole today just to take a little bit of pressure off of him. He will move back up to the top.”

The game was Toronto’s first since July 3 when Post 33 defeated it, 6-3, at Vaccaro Field.

Toronto is scheduled to play Brilliant Post 573 at 6 p.m. today in a makeup game at Bill Mazeroski Field, before playing Friday at Weirton and St. Clairsville at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Knights Baseball Complex.

“Our pitchers are going to have to get us through,” Sninchak said. “We are asking a lot out of them. We have very few arms left. We are going to have to use them as we get ready to go into the tournament. We are going to have guys pitching one or two innings in the next few games.”

Jefferson County is scheduled to play St. Clairsville Post 159 at 6 p.m. today at home. Post 159 defeated Post 33, 7-6, on June 27.

Jefferson County 5, Toronto 0

Toronto 0-0-0 0-0-0 0 — 0-8-1

Jefferson 0-0-1 2-1-1 x — 5-10-0

TORONTO (3-8): Herrick (lp, 6IP, 5R, 10H, 4K, 3BB) and Gump.

JEFFERSON COUNTY (33-7): Boggess (wp, 7IP, 0R, 5R, 7H, 4K, 3BB) and Criss.

TWO OR MORE HITS: Toronto 2 (Bodnar, Gump); Jefferson County (Sinicropi 3, McBane 2). DOUBLES: Toronto 2 (Bodnar 2); Jefferson County 2 (Zorne, McBane). TRIPLES: none. HOME RUNS: none. RBIs: Toronto none; Jefferson County 3 (Zorne, Criss, McBane).

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