Tuesday’s baseball game between Bradford and DuBois Central Catholic was one of those contests that was a lot more enjoyable for the players than the fans.

Despite some cold and rainy conditions, the Owls won their second game in as many days as they downed the Cardinals 8-5 to improve to 4-3 on the season.

Coming off of a dramatic 11-10, come-from-behind victory over Punxsutawney on Monday, Bradford put forth a strong seven-inning effort on Tuesday against one of the better teams in the district.

Dan Manion had a nice outing on the mound, working five-plus innings and finishing with six strikeouts, three walks, and four hits.

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Owls coach Andy Carlson said. “What we needed, and what we finally got, was some length out of a starter. Dan was able to throw 5 and ⅔ which was huge for us because we play five games this week and we’ve got three games next week. Having length out of our starter is huge for us.”

DCC got on the board first via a passed ball in the top of the first to take a 1-0 lead.

The Owls would tie things up in the bottom of the second on a sacrifice fly by Hunter Gray that scored Patrick Caskey. Bradford would then take a 2-1 lead on bases-loaded passed ball.

The Cardinals took the lead back in the next frame after a Bradford error with two outs and the bases loaded brought two men in.

Bradford’s three errors in the contest ultimately didn’t impact the final score, but it’s something Carlson knows his team needs to continue to work on.

“Sometimes I have to remember that this is high school baseball; you’re going to make errors,” he said. “And with the weather conditions, it was wet, it was rainy, it was sloppy out there. The guys played hard and that’s all you can ask. But we do need to make more plays. We need to make it a little bit easier on our pitchers.”

DCC would give a run right back, though, with an error of its own in the bottom of the third to tie the score at 3-3.

Bradford’s bats would come alive in the fifth inning. After loading the bases with just one out, Tyler Gigliotti brought in two runs on the only extra-base hit of the game, a looping double that made its way to the right field fence.

Caleb Nuzzo and Isaac Gralak would both add RBI singles, and a sacrifice fly by Peyton Manion ultimately made it 8-3 Bradford.

With 19 runs scored in the last two games, Carlson’s players are beginning to find their stroke at the plate.

“We hit the ball hard,” he said. “We took some good swings. We only had a couple of bad at-bats when we struck out with guys in scoring position, maybe looking to pull the ball a little bit. But in general we took some really good swings at the baseball.

“We had about 40 at-bats and I only counted a handful of bad at-bats,” he added. “We moved the ball, we got bunts down, we drove the ball backside. And we struck the balls hard. When everybody’s hitting, it’s contagious.”

The Cardinals scored two more runs in their half of the sixth on a two-run single by Brandon Walker that cut the lead to 8-5. But Bradford’s Peyton Manion was solid in relief of his older brother in recording the final four outs of the game with relative ease.

For the elder Manion, it was by far his strongest outing of the season so far. Carlson hopes it will carry over through the remainder of the year when pitch counts will be even more of a concern given the condensed schedule.

“He had some arm issues early in the year and I really attest a lot of his struggles to that,” Carlson said of Manion. “He’s trying to feel it out. But he’s starting to come around as far as health. He had a good feel for the ball. He was throwing his curveball for strikes, throwing some changeups in there, making good pitches.

“We started him in the district championship game last year for a reason. He gives us a chance to win 99.9 percent of the time.”

The Owls will host Brookville this afternoon at 4:15 p.m. at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s Kessel Athletic Complex.

AT BRADFORD

   R H E

DuBois CC 102 002 0    5 5 2

Bradford     021 050 X 8 9 3

Garrett Prosper (3 SO, 6 BB), Noah Bloom (4) (3 SO, 3 BB), Peter Downer (5) (3 SO, 1 BB), and Brandon Walker

Dan Manion (6 SO, 3 BB), Peyton Manion (6) (1 SO), and Caleb Nuzzo