WILCOX — Imagine combining the Smethport high school baseball team with Coudersport’s.
Then, add two players from Port Allegany and another from Kane. Once assembled, pit that team against a roster of Johnsonburg and Kane’s best.
District 9 combinations such as those are the norm in the 19U Elk County legion baseball league, and on Monday, those rosters produced a walk-off thriller at Jones Township Park.
The league, composed of five teams across Elk and McKean counties, began a six-week schedule on June 2. Once completed, the teams will play for a spot in the Region 8 tournament in Erie.
Bradford, Emporium, Kane, Smethport and Wilcox are each represented. Monday’s matchup featured the latter two, as Wilcox defeated Smethport, 4-3, thanks to a walk-off sacrifice fly by Aiden Zimmerman.
Smethport Post #976 entered the game 3-0, while it was Wilcox Post #467’s season-opener.
Wilcox was forced to delay the start of its season due to the Johnsonburg high school baseball team’s run to the state quarterfinals of the PIAA Class 2A tournament. The majority of Wilcox’s roster played on that team, forcing it to wait until Monday for its first taste of the wooden-bat league.
“Baseball’s baseball. It’s all the same, just different fields,” Wilcox coach Michael Porter said. (Smethport is) pretty solid. They’ve got some guys from Coudersport, some guys from Port Allegany, and they’ve got a couple guys missing tonight. They’re going to be a really strong team in legion so we’re going to have some battles with them.”
The game featured a trio of D9 pitchers, including AJ Redmond, a Coudersport native that threw a complete game for Smethport. Redmond kept Wilcox’s lineup off balance for much of the game, inducing a handful of pop-ups while exhibiting pitch control that helped him get through seven innings.
Redmond finished with four strikeouts and no walks while allowing four runs, three of them earned, on eight hits.
Gabe Watts started on the mound for Wilcox. Watts, a St. Bonaventure commit, helped power Johnsonburg’s 22-1 spring finish as the team’s top pitcher and the winning pitcher in the D9 Class 2A title game.
In that game, he beat Kane’s Carson Whiteman, who is now his teammate in Wilcox.
Watts allowed one run on three hits and five walks in three innings, while striking out five. He was relieved by Collin Porter, another go-to arm for Michael Porter’s Johnsonburg club, in the fourth.
Collin Porter struck out six over four innings while allowing just three hits. It was Travis Cooney’s home run over the left field fence in the seventh inning, however, that tied the game for Smethport and forced Wilcox to answer in the bottom half of the frame.
“The mound was a struggle tonight,” Michael Porter said. “It’s like pitching off of a beach. Both of them were slipping and sliding around, but we kind of drive the point that we’re not going to make excuses. They’re pitching off the same mound so you’ve just got to find a way to ground it out.”
Wilcox had maintained a 2-1 lead through four innings before Smethport’s Derek Easton, who plays his spring ball for Coudersport, tied the game by scoring on a wild pitch.
Wilcox answered in the bottom half of the frame on a bloop single by Camron Marciniak that scored Zimmerman. Once Cooney forced a final turn at-bat for Wilcox, a leadoff double by Jefferson Freeburg sparked a rally.
Luke Zimmerman advanced Freeburg to third with a bunt single before his brother drove a ball deep enough into right field to allow Freeburg to beat the ensuing throw home.
“They finished the game today,” Michael Porter said. “We didn’t finish the game the other day in the high school game. To be able to finish this game in a similar situation, that bodes positively.”
This won’t be the last time these teams meet in the Elk County league, but as Porter pointed out, they showed why they’re two of the favorites to advance to July’s regionals and.
Freeburg and Aiden Zimmerman each finished with two hits while Marciniak and Dom Allegretto each added an RBI. Garrett Kellert went 3-for-4 with an RBI at the plate for Smethport.
The league’s final regular-season date is scheduled for July 5, while playoffs will begin July 7.
