Williamsport, Pa. – James McCoy’s fifth home run of the season aided the Crosscutters to a 5-3 win, successfully taking the series against West Virginia on Tuesday night.
After a tough showing on Monday night, the Cutters received a stellar outing from David Case, as the lefty opened the game with five scoreless frames against a West Virginia offense that scored 14 runs on 18 hits the night prior.
Williamsport took advantage of a West Virginia error by 2nd Basemen Cayden Gaskin, allowing Jack Kail to score the game’s opening run in the bottom of the 2nd inning.
Nicholas Romano opened the 3rd with a single to right, followed by McCoy’s 406-foot, opposite field home run to left, extending the Williamsport lead to 3-0. Homering on a 3-0 offering, McCoy upped his RBI tally to 23 for the season.
West Virginia finally got to David Case in the 6th inning, plating a pair of runs on an Ian Collier, two-run double to cut the deficit to 3-2.
Davin Pollard entered with two on, allowing the tying run to score on a RBI ground out by Cole Kitchens.
Pollard worked through some command issues, delivering a scoreless 7th inning, striking out one.
Joel Tornero entered in the top of the 8th inning, walking a pair of batters, but was able to get Kitchens to ground into the inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.
In the bottom of the 8th, Williamsport utilized a lead of walk to James McCoy. Nick Barone moved McCoy to 2nd with a sacrifice bunt and then McCoy stole 3rd with Chris Stanfield at the plate.
After walks to Stanfield and intentional walk to Jack Kail, Sam DeCarlo sent a broken bat sacrifice fly to center, scoring McCoy to give Williamsport their first lead since the 3rd inning.
Jake Zitella followed with a RBI single to right-center, scoring Stanfield to make it 5-3 and provide a little insurance.
Despite allowing a two-out walk, Tornero utilized a pair of strikeouts to work a scoreless 9th inning to close out the game and earn his first win of the season.
Williamsport will now hit the road for three games against the Mahoning Valley Scrappers. First pitch scheduled for 7:05 p.m. in Niles, Ohio on Wednesday night.
Cutters Carvings: James McCoy scored a run in the 8th inning or later in all three games of the series, including the winning runs on Sunday and Tuesday… Nick Barone saw his league-leading 26-game on-base streak come to an end with a 0-for-3 night… The series win was the 10th of the season for the Cutters, who are now 10-3-4 in series this year…
