BERWYN, PA — After an 0-4 start in the Central League, Conestoga has started to find their way under first year manager Anthony Greco.
After taking down Upper Darby last Wednesday, the Pioneers won their second in a row as they handled Springfield 9-1 on Tuesday afternoon. It was really a great overall team performance, there were contributions from everywhere.
We’ll start with Luke Hunter, who threw four shutout innings with four strikeouts to get the game going. The Pioneers scored in each of the first four innings to give him a 9-0 lead when he left the game.
James Quici scored on a passed ball in the first inning to make it 1-0 and in the second inning, Conestogs added two more on a Landon Jones single to score Chase Rantanen and Brendan Soura scoring on a wild pitch.
Springfield would load the bases in the top of the third, but Luke Hunter picked up a strikeout to keep them off the board and keep the momentum with Conestoga.
They continued to build off of that momentum in the third. Chase Cherny doubled, Hunter walked, and Mark Kotapka’s grounder knocked in Cherny. Landon Jones added another RBI single later in the inning to make it 6-0.
Conestoga put the game away for good in the bottom of the fourth with three more runs. James Quici doubled, and Cooper Evers traded places with him with an RBI double to make it 7-0. Unless GameChanger is lying to us, it appears Cooper Evers would score from second base on a groundout to shortstop, so if that is true, that’s great base running right there to make it 8-0. An error later on in brought in the ninth and final run for Conestoga.
After Hunter game out, Conestoga got two innings of relief from Nolan Campbell and one from Evan Sonn. Springfield did get one in the fifth on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Danny Meakim, but that’s all they would get.
Conestoga is back in the race here as they are now 2-4 in the Central League. They have some work to do, but it’s a start. They’ll travel to Harriton (2-4) on Wednesday for their next game.
As for Springfield (0-5) the tough start to the year continues for the young rebuilding team. They’ll welcome in Upper Darby (0-5) for a battle of the two winless Central League teams Wednesday afternoon to see who gets their first win.