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Beverly/Lowell defeats Post 64, 5-1

By Jordan Holland 6 min read

MARIETTA -- Defending state champion Beverly/Lowell Post 389/750 defeated Marietta Post 64 5-1 on Tuesday to begin the Region 4 Tournament at Pioneer Park.

Despite getting out-hit 9-5 in the game, Beverly/Lowell took advantage of Marietta's defensive blunders to move into the winner's bracket of the double-elimination tourney. Post 389/750 will play the winner of St. Clairsville-Steubenville at 4 p.m. today while Post 64 will play the loser in an elimination game.

"Obviously it’s disappointing," said Marietta head coach Chad Porter, whose squad committed three errors in Beverly/Lowell's four-run second inning. "We kind of beat ourselves, and that’s you can you absolutely cannot do that against Beverly/Lowell. You can’t beat yourself, and we did. We just weren’t able to answer offensively. It happened really early in the game, so I felt that we could chip away a little bit. It was four runs. I think we had some opportunities, but we just didn’t capitalize. Really, we held them at bay after that and out-hit them. This game comes down to catching and throwing, and we just for whatever reason didn’t do that there in that inning."

With a runner on second and one out in the second, Wade Duskey's grounder to second was booted to put runners on the corners for Beverly/Lowell. Kyler Starr's bunt was fielded cleanly, but nobody covered first to allow the first run of the game to score. Leadoff man Cam Sidwell followed with another bunt and beat the throw to first, which got away from the covering second baseman to allow another run to come in.

"Those have to be converted," Porter said. "Now, they were good bunts, and they’re a good bunting team. We knew that coming in. We knew we had to defend that, and we just didn’t get the job done."

Sidwell then stole second, with the throw hooking into the outfield to bring in a third run. Sidwell later scored on Wyatt Siley's RBI groundout to make it 4-0. Bo Jonas made a diving stop on the play to prevent another run from scoring, and then reliever Casey Burkhammer got another groundout to prevent further damage.

"We did some really good things," said Beverly/Lowell skipper Todd Engle. "The one inning, we got them sped up. I thought we bunted the baseball and got them sped up and did OK there. Then we kind of set on it. They’re well coached. They’re not going to go away, so you can’t complain about a four-spot, but it could have been a six- or seven-spot right there."

Engle watched starter JR Curry pitch 5 1-3 shutout innings, walking three and striking out six to earn the win. Jake Laswell covered an inning in relief, giving up a run in the seventh before Jenner Burge came on and punched out the final two batters.

"My pitchers, and they’ve done it all year long, they’re going to give us a chance to win each and every game, and they did," Engle said. "I thought JR threw really well, even though he couldn’t get ahead early in the count."

Beverly/Lowell added a run in the fourth. Sidwell led off with a single, advanced to second and third on back-to-back groundouts and finally scored on a wild pitch to extend the lead to 5-0.

That was the only damage surrendered by Burkhammer, who pitched 4 2-3 innings of relief with one walk and four punchouts.

Tate Jonas started the game, but struggled with command. He went 1 1-3 innings, walked four and struck out one. Porter is hopeful to have the right-hander available later in the tournament.

"I just felt that he was laboring and getting behind a lot of batters," Porter said. "I felt like we were behind 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 a lot. They had some momentum, and of course it plays into your mind, you know, 'Hey, he’s at this pitch count. We can either bleed him when he maybe doesn’t have his best stuff, or we can make a switch.' Casey did an outstanding job. Casey kept us in the game."

Trailing by five and down to their last three outs, Post 64 found life in the top of the seventh. Will Tornes led off with a double down the right field line. After a strikeout, Braun Doak's infield single and Tate Jonas' base knock to right loaded the bases. That's when Engle called on Burge to close it out. A wild pitch allowed Tornes to cross and bring an end to the shutout, but Burge fanned both batters he faced looking to secure the win.

"(Marietta's) played a lot of baseball, and you can tell," noted Engle, who said left-hander Witten Schaad likely will get the starting nod today. "They’re usually not going to get rattled. We did speed them up in one inning, but you can’t count on that against a Chad Porter-coached team. Hopefully we’re going to see each other again before this thing’s over with. They have the dudes to get back out of this and get back in the winners bracket."

Post 64 hopes to stave off elimination today and make a tournament run.

"It all comes down to how long do you want to play?" Porter said. "We show up at the ballpark tomorrow and we have to make a decision, and that decision’s got to be to win pitches one at a time, take care of the baseball and to score runs. If our pitching does that, and we can score some runs, we’ll be in good shape. It’s disappointing. We’ve got to overcome it and flush it down the toilet and come back tomorrow."

Contact Jordan Holland at jholland@newsandsentinel.com.

At Pioneer Park

Region 4 Tournament

Beverly/Lowell 5, Marietta 1

M 000 000 1 -- 1 9 3

B 040 100 x -- 5 5 1

WP: JR Curry 5.1 IP, 3 BB, 6 SO

Jake Laswell 1 IP, 0 BB, 2 SO

Jenner Burge .2 IP, 0 BB, 2 SO

LP: Tate Jonas 1.1 IP, 4 BB, 1 SO

Casey Burkhammer 4.2 IP, 1 BB, 4 SO

Marietta (14-21) hitting: Will Tornes 3-4, 2B, R; Braun Doak 3-3, 2B; Jonas 1-4; Bo Jonas 1-4; Gavin Fling 1-4

Beverly/Lowell (23-8) hitting: Cam Sidwell 3-4, 2 Rs; Easton Walker 1-3, 2B; Jack McCurdy 1-2; Wyatt Siley RBI; Kyler Starr R, RBI

Starting at /week.