Published: August 09, 2007 12:01 am            

AAABA: Two-out rally in ninth prolongs tournament run

Down two runs. Two outs. Nobody on base in the bottom of the ninth inning.

No problem.

Johnstown’s Delweld pulled off another dramatic comeback Wednesday night at Point Stadium, stringing together four straight hits and scoring three times to rally past the Zanesville Junior Pioneers 5-4 .

“Shame on anybody that left early,” Delweld manager Chris DelSignore said. “They gave up but we didn’t give up.”

Zanesville led 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth after the Pioneers plated a run in the first and three in the fourth.

Delweld had scored once in the fifth and again in the seventh but had squandered several other opportunities and appeared to be in dire straights after pinch-hitter Matt Mesaros and Dan Clark each struck out to open the final frame.

“Right after Danny Clark struck out, I said, ‘Hey, don’t you guys quit, we still have one out left,’ ” said DelSignore, whose 2-1 team faces New York at 7:30 tonight at the Point. “You’ve got Scott Stern, Matt Petrowsky, Matt Hanley and Tim Freshour. They were faced with their possible last at-bats, and they weren’t going to be denied.”

Stern singled into the left-field corner for his third hit of the night. He doubled twice and drove in a run.

Matt Petrowsky doubled to left against Zanesville reliever Don Smith, who entered in the bottom of the eighth.

With runners on second and third, cleanup hitter Matt Hanley nearly cleared the left-field screen but settled for a two-run double that tied the game.

“I was just looking for something to hit hard,” said Hanley, who had two hits. “I was looking for a single to get that run home. Man did he give me a nice pitch to hit, right down the middle. I was trying to get a good piece of wood on it.”

A wild pitch moved Hanley to third.

Tim Freshour finished an eight-pitch at-bat with a single to right field that drove in Hanley and set off a celebration on the field, in the stands and on the hillside overlooking the Point.

“I thought the game was over when Hanley hit that one,” Freshour said, thinking the ball was going over the screen. “Whenever we tied the game it took a lot of pressure off. I was just trying to put something in play. I fouled off a couple change-ups, and I just got something over the middle.”

A complete-game eight-hitter by right-hander Paul Bugajski made the comeback possible. Bugajski, like Hanley a pick-up from Principle Development, held Zanesville scoreless over the final five innings. He struck out five and walked two.

“Paul settled down after the fourth and got into a rhythm,” DelSignore said. “He was throwing more strikes and he shut them out the rest of the way. That’s a gutsy performance.”

Prior to the rally, Delweld was in the hole. Brandon Varmecky singled in the fourth and scored on a Clark grounder. Clark bunted for a hit in the seventh and scored on a Stern double.

Prior to the game, Zanesville (1-2) won the coin toss but manager Doug Pollock opted to bat first, giving Delweld the last at-bat.

The gamble paid off early, as Brock Whiteman had a run-scoring single, and Jerod Yakubik, Josh Davy and Tyler Kaido each doubled in a three-run fourth. But Delweld came back late.

“The crowd was unbelievable,” DelSignore said. “I haven’t heard this stadium that loud before. They pulled us through. It’s a big thing when you’ve got the crowd. You can tell the momentum is shifting.”

        

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