Cranberry Breaks Out the Bats in a Doubleheader Sweep of Clarion-Limestone

| May 16, 2017

Trevor Gladin Cranberry
STRATTANVILLE, Pa. (D9Sports) – Baseball can be a funny, cruel, frustrating sport sometimes.

(Photo: Trevor Gladin of Cranberry was the Hager Paving Player of the Game)

Take Game One of a doubleheader between Cranberry and Clarion-Limestone Monday afternoon at the C-L Sports Complex.

The homestanding Lions entered the contest having won four in a row while allowing all of six runs in those four games, while the visiting Berries had dropped three of their last four scoring a grand total of four runs in those losses.

Add to the mix that each team was throwing its ace – Sam Leadbetter for C-L and Nolan Brannon for Cranberry – and one would be safe to assume a low-scoring affair was at hand.

Except, baseball doesn’t always work that way.

Cranberry, which had scored 17 runs the entire month of May, batted around twice and used a 14-run third inning to blast the Lions, 19-0, in three innings.

“I don’t know what changed between last week and this week, because we couldn’t touch the ball last week to save our lives,” Cranberry manager Patrick Irwin said. “We were fortunate enough to split the ball in half pretty frequently this afternoon.”

Freshman Trevor Gladin led the way for Cranberry going 3-for-4 with a triple, a run scored and six RBIs while being named the Hager Paving Player of the Game.

“He’s very talented, especially for a freshman,” Irwin said. “He has put a lot of work in up to this point, and it’s starting to pay dividends. It’s going to continue to pay dividends for a while.”

The Berries got a lot of help from a porous C-L defense, especially in the third inning when the Lions committed six errors behind reliever Ian Hawthorn, who got charged with 14 runs, but none of them earned.

“We are no stranger to booting it around the field,” Irwin said. “That was our downfall last week. There is something to be said about putting the ball in play and making somebody play defense.”

While Cranberry’s offense was humming, lefty Nolan Brannon was in control in his two innings on the mound.

Pitching the first and the second, Brannon allowed two baserunners – one on a hit pitch and another on an error – and struck out four of the eight men he faced including three of four at one point.

“We have asked a lot of Nolan over the last week coming back on three-days rest to throw against Clarion (Friday) and coming back on two-days rest (today), so it was nice for him to get a little run support today.”

Cranberry started its offense going in the second inning when it had seven hits off of Leadbetter, including five straight singles to start the inning, while scoring five runs off the Lions’ starter.

It wasn’t all Leadbetter’s fault, as the first two balls put in play during the inning were eminently catchable.

Jake Felmlee’s fly ball to left seemed to be lost in the high sky or sun by left fielder Curvin Goheen going for a base hit, and then Cameron Daugherty’s single to right handcuffed right fielder David Wiles. Tommy Flinspach then loaded the bases with an infield single to deep short, and Trevin Chittester followed with a two-run single to left. Shay Harry followed with a single scoring another run before Andrew Gunn was hit by a pitch and Glading followed with a two-run single to left.

The Berries might have had a bigger inning if not for Gunn getting caught trying to steal third and Glading getting thrown out at home trying to score from second on an infield single.

But the base running mistakes didn’t matter when Cranberry batted around twice in the third sending 18 men to the plate and scoring the 14 runs on 10 hits and the six errors as well as a walk. Every batter that batted in the inning but Felmlee – whose courtesy runner Matt McQuaide didn’t score – and pinch hitter Luke Gratkowski scored in the the frame including a pair of runs each by Daugherty, Flinspach, Chittester, Harry, Brandon Forrest and Gunn.

Cranberry completed the sweep with a 7-4 win in Game Two.

In the second game, Daugherty was 2-for-2 with a double and two RBIs, Brannon was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and two RBIs, Gladin was 3-for-3 with an RBI and three runs scored and Felmlee was 1-for-3 with a double and two RBIs for Cranberry.

For C-L, Leadbetter was 2-for-3 with a run scored, Riley Hummell was 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI and Drew Beichner was 2-for-3 with two RBIs.

GAME ONE: CRANBERRY 19, CLARION-LIMESTONE 0, 3 INNINGS

Score by Innings

Cranberry 05(14) – 19
C-L 000 – 0

CRANBERRY – 19

Andrew Gunn 2b 2223, Trevor Gladin ss 4136, Nolan Brannon p/cf 3121, Luke Gratkowski ph 1000, Jake Felmlee c 3031, Matt McQuaide cr 0100, Cameron Daugherty rf 3321, Tommy Flinspach 3b 3321, Trevin Chittester 1b 3312, Shay Harry lf 3323, Brandon Forrest cf/p 3211. Totals 28-19-18-18.

CLARION-LIMESTONE – 0

Colby Himes 2b 0000, Ben Smith 3b 1000, Curvin Goheen lf 1000, Jordan Pezzuti lf 1000, Sam Leadbetter p/ss 2000, Christian Smith 1b 1000, Zane Summerville dh 1000, David Wiles rf/p 0000, Ian Hawthorn ss/p/rf 1000, Riley Hummell cf 1000, Drew Beichner c 1000, Jake Zacherl 3b/2b 1010. Totals 11-0-1-0.

LOB: Cranberry 2. C-L 3. Errors: Cranberry 1. C-L 6. 3B: Gladin. SB: Himes. CS: Gunn. HBP: Gunn by Leadbetter. Himes by Brannon.

PITCHING

Cranberry

Nolan Brannon – 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 1 HP.
Brandon Forest – 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 0 HP.
TOTALS – 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, 1 HP.

Clarion-Limestone

Sam Leadbetter – 2 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 1 HP
Ian Hawthorn 0.2 IP, 10 H, 14 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 0 HP
David Wiles – 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 0 HP
TOTALS – 3 IP, 18 H, 19 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HP.

Winning pitcher – Brannon
Losing pitcher – Leadbetter


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