ABERDEEN, Md. - The Williamsport Crosscutters completed the three-game sweep of the Aberdeen IronBirds with a 6-1 victory on Tuesday night at IBEW Local 24 Union Field at Ripken Stadium and, in the process, pushed their winning streak to six straight games.
Aberdeen would take the early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first and control the game until the fourth inning.
Santino Panaro started off the fourth with a single, stole second and moved to third on a Jack Kail groundout. This setup James McCoy to drive home Panaro with a single, then stealing second.
Following a Matthew Williams walk, Nicholas Romano singled to score McCoy and move Williams to second. Williams would not stay there long as he would score on a Trey Wells single.
Not done yet, Jake Zitella would follow up with his fifth double of the season. That would score Romano but Trey Wells was put out at the plate to cap the scoring, giving Williamsport the 4-1 lead in the middle of the fourth.
Williamsport would get back-to-back singles from Sam DeCarlo and Santino Panaro to start off the fifth inning with both moving into scoring position on a Jack Kail groundout.
This brought James McCoy back to the plate, driving home both DeCarlo and Panaro to extend the Williamsport lead to 6-1 in the middle of the fifth.
Pitching would take over the rest of the way, keeping both offenses off the scoreboard and giving the Cutters the 6-1 victory and the series sweep.
Josh Willitts earned the win to improve to 4-0 on the season with a six inning start, allowing just one unearned run on five hits with two walks and five strikeouts.
Matthew Mariano pitched the final three innings and earned his third save, allowing just one baserunner on a hit while striking out three.
Williamsport returns home for the league-wide off day on Wednesday before beginning their final regular season series, a six-game home-and-home matchup with the State College Spikes. The series gets underway on Thursday at 6:35 p.m. at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park before shifting to Journey Bank Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field on Friday.
Cutters Carvings - Williamsport is now just three wins away from the franchise record of 48 with six regular season games remaining... James McCoy is now second in league history in RBI with 51, five away from the record of 56 RBI set by Mahoning Valley's Mason Sykes in 2023... Williamsport finishes their regular season series 9-4 against the IronBirds...
