On Monday, April 15th, the Warriors played Bucktail at home. They won 13-2 after a big fourth inning. As a team, the boys accumulated 12 hits. Those hits came from Isaac Tiracorda, who had three, two came from Luke Liptak, and then one from Lukas Colton, Brody Rothrock, Noah Emigh, Cody Kephart, Nick Parks, Logan Liptak, and Zach McGonigal. The big fourth inning previously mentioned was just another nail in the coffin of an already blowout victory. By the fourth, the score was already 6-2 in favor of West Branch. Those previous six runs came from the other innings, including a fly ball from Brody Rothrock that allowed Luke Liptak to walk in from third, Lukas Colton on a fielder’s choice, Zach McGonigal on a hit from Luke Liptak, a walk with the bases loaded where Isaac scored, a sacrifice fly from Brody Rothrock allowing Liptak to score, and a hit by pitch with the bases loaded as well, where Zane Woodling walked in. The fourth inning had a total of seven runs. The first came from an error on a failed pick-off attempt, allowing Noah Emigh to score, a hit to center field where Coby Kephart scored, another hit to center by Isaac Tiracorda with Liptak scoring again, a hit from Lukas Colton driving in Zach McGonigal and Isaac Tiracorda, followed by a hit from Noah Emigh driving in Liptak, and finally, a sac fly from Matt Eirich that scored Lukas. Luke Liptak’s thoughts on the team’s performance against Bucktail were positive, “The team played well, and Tyler Wilson threw a great game. It was nice to start the week with a good win,” which moves on to the next game of the week against MoValley.
On Tuesday, April 16th, the Warriors put on another impressive showing, beating the MoValley Knights 14-1 on the road. West Branch batted first in that game. Nothing significant happened until the top of the fourth inning, where Zach McGonigal drove in Dylan McGonigal for the first run of the day for West Branch. The next runs, also in the fourth, came with the bases loaded where Luke Liptak hit a double to drive in all three runners: Matt Eirich, Zach McGonigal, and Isaac Tiracorda. In the bottom of the fourth, MoValley scored their only run of the day. From there on, the Warriors scored ten more runs in the top of the sixth. Nick Parks scored on a bunt from Zach, Matt scored on a bases-loaded walk, Zach scored on a bases-loaded hit by pitch, Isaac scored on another walk, and finally, Brody Rothrock drove in two runs on a line-drive single to left field. Next, Nick Parks drove in Tyler Wilson and Brody on a fly ball to left field, and to end the scoring frenzy, the last runs came from an error off of Isaac’s ground ball that drove in two runs after the ball went past the first baseman. Isaac Tiracorda also shared his thoughts on how the team performed, “We started pretty slow as a team and had some pretty sloppy base running, but we turned it on late, putting up 14 in 3 innings.” Moving on to the last game of the week, which was against Mount Union.
On Thursday, April 18th, the Warriors took on the Trojans of Mount Union at their home field. Unfortunately, this game did not go as well as the earlier games in the week. The Warriors ended up losing 10-0, with the boys only accumulating 7 hits that day. Brody Rothrock reflected on how the game went, “It was a rough game all around, but that’s a great team, definitely the best team on our schedule. Just gotta learn from it and bounce back better than ever.” Next week, the boys will play Glendale on Tuesday, Claysburg on Thursday, Southern Huntingdon on Friday, and Curwensville on Saturday.
