Reed: McVeytown tops Strodes Mills in Babe Ruth action
By Dominic Reed
Sports correspondent
MCVEYTOWN- Mcveytown (8-2) welcomed Strodes Mills (6-4) at the Rothrock Playground for a Tuesday afternoon Babe Ruth showdown.
Mcveytown had a positive thing to work with in pitcher Gatlin Kauffman. Kauffman almost went the distance in the 12-7 win.
“We played a bad first inning. We had three errors and walked as well as a hit batter. We gave up five runs,” said McVeytown Coach Yetter. The kids showed a lot of resilience and didn’t hang their heads. They came right back, picked away at it made it 5-2, 5-4 then we took the lead They never looked back. I really got to give them a bunch of credit for sticking together and overcoming that first inning.”
Kauffman was able to give his team several innings before his pitch count came into effect. Kauffman had a very strong performance. Nazee Traxler had three hits on the night coming to the plate five times.
Traxler opened the home half of the first inning with a double.
It wouldn’t take long for Mcveytown to start cutting into the lead.
Carson Cherry would drive in Traxler for a Rbi single to cut the deficit to four.
The kids in Maroon would score four runs in two innings to make it a 5-4 ball game. It would be a team effort the bats gave Mcveytown the upper hand with quality at bats all night long.
Strodes Mills scored five runs in the top of the first inning.
It was an inning to forget for Mcveytown.
Strodes Mills would struggle to get points on the board, only scoring twice in the rest of the game.
Chase Moore gave his team a chance on the mound.
Moore’s job wouldn’t seem too hard coming in on the defensive side with a five run lead until Strodes would only lead by one run then eventually have to play from behind.
Strodes never really got much going they would look for help in relief with Brayden Hunter,Michael Mcnitt and Joel Beamer would come in to pitch.
On the offensive side, Dylan Stahl was a hard out for Mcveytown.
Late in the game, Strodes would attempt a comeback. There was hope when Kayden Waick reached base on a walk. Mcveytown would get out of it, getting the outs they needed to earn the win defeating Strodes Mills 12-7 Mcveytown moves to 9-2 on the year Strodes falls to 6-5 on the year.