It was a miserable day to play baseball, but you’d have a hard time telling that to the Bradford Legion players on Monday.
Less than 24 hours after suffering its first league loss of the season, Bradford rebounded to trounce St. Marys 17-3 in five rain-soaked innings to claim the Elk County Legion baseball title at Pitt-Bradford’s Kessel Athletic Complex.
Bradford fell to St. Marys 4-1 on Sunday in the double-elimination tournament, setting up Monday’s contest for all the marbles. After two scoreless innings, Bradford’s bats caught fire, plating six runs in the third and then a whopping 11 in the fourth.
“We put the bat on the ball,” Bradford coach Brian Fox said. “We were aggressive on the bases.”
Leading the offensive extravaganza for Bradford were Garret Babcock and Peyton Manion. Babcock very nearly hit for the cycle, going 4-for-4 with a triple, two doubles, and a single while driving in five runs. Manion, meanwhile, went 3-for-4 with two doubles and a single while notching seven RBIs.
Neither team’s’ bats were very lively in the first few innings, though St. Marys had a golden opportunity in the top of the third. With the bases loaded, the visitors seemed poised to take the early advantage, but Bradford starter Garren Black worked out of danger by striking out Austin Sadosky to end the inning.
“[He] pitched a very good game,” Fox said of his starter. “He threw strikes and put the ball in play.”
While he did walk nine batters, Black would finish with three strikeouts and just one hit allowed in five innings on the mound.
“They didn’t have the big hits tonight,” Fox added. “I think we had more gas in our tank tonight than they did. It came down to our confidence.”
That confidence showed up big time in the bottom of the third when Bradford’s offense found its groove.
After two walks and a single, Babcock stepped up to the plate with a none out, bases-loaded opportunity. With one swing of the bat, all three runners soon crossed home plate as Babcock drove one into the right-center field gap for a bases-clearing triple.
“That’s the guy I want at the plate in every situation I can,” Fox said of his No. 3 hitter. “Garret always comes through. He’s our go-to man and everybody has confidence in his capabilities and he came through tonight. That’s what we knew he could do.”
A bases-loaded walk and a two-run single from Manion would give Bradford a 6-0 cushion after three.
St. Marys would get one run back in the top of the fourth on a sacrifice fly from Eric Gerber to make it 6-1. But it wouldn’t be nearly enough as the floodgates broke open in earnest in the bottom of the fourth.
Babcock and Manion were once again the catalysts for the 11-run outburst, as both players managed to record two doubles in the same inning. Manion in fact had several games worth of production in the fourth inning alone. He began by knocking a two-run two-bagger in his first go in the frame, and then one-upped himself the second time around with a bases-clearing double for five RBIs in the inning.
“Peyton came up with two very big base-clearing doubles down in the bottom third of the order,” Fox said.
When all was said and done, Bradford exited the fourth inning with a 17-1 advantage. The offensive explosion, combined with the steady rain, seemed to suck the life out of the St. Marys side.
“The game changes when the field and the baseballs are wet,” Fox noted. “We adjusted well and they apparently didn’t.”
St. Marys was able to plate two more runs in the top of the fifth to close the gap slightly. But a sharp grounder back to Black on the mound put matters to rest and medals around Bradford’s necks.
Bradford (17-2 overall) will be off until Saturday when it begins play in the Region 8 Tournament, set to run Saturday through Wednesday, July 19 in Albion against teams from leagues in Crawford-Venango, Warren and Erie counties. The opponent and venue of the game have yet to be determined.
