It’s been a whirlwind of a season for the Bradford Legion baseball team. The success the players saw in their high school seasons led to an abbreviated summer schedule, with the team playing practically every day for more than a week.
After a few days of rest, Bradford came out strong in its first playoff contest on Friday, defeating Fox Township 12-2 in six innings at Pitt-Bradford’s Kessel Athletic Complex.
Bradford recovered from a sluggish start to put up multiple runs in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings and pull away for the ‘W’.
“We had a bit of a slow start,” Bradford coach Brian Fox said. “We were facing a good junker pitcher. He showed us a lot of off-speed stuff and it took us a little while to adjust.”
The ‘junker’ pitcher in question was Fox’s Tyler Bullers, whose sidearm delivery gave the Bradford hitters some problems in the early going.
Eventually, however, Bradford’s bats got going thanks in large part to the performance of Bryce Skaggs, who finished with three doubles, an RBI, and two runs scored.
Fox opened the scoring in emphatic fashion. Shane Price (2-for-3) ripped an RBI single that very nearly took out Bradford starting pitcher Danny Manion in the first inning.
Bradford would answer in its half of the first on a sacrifice fly to left field by Garret Babcock that scored his brother Gage.
Bradford had a chance to take the lead in the third with two men on base. But Bullers had his ground ball pitch working, inducing a nice five to three double play.
Fox regained the lead in the top of the fourth on an errant Skaggs throw from behind the plate. The damage could have been worse with another runner in scoring position, but Manion — who was succeeded on the mound by Gage Babcock — made a tough play at third base to record the final out and keep the deficit at one.
Some sloppy fielding by Fox allowed Bradford to close the gap in the bottom of the fourth, tying the game at 2-2. Gage Babcock then broke the tie with an RBI double that scored Peyton Manion to make it 3-2 Bradford.
Things got even better for Bradford in the fifth inning as Skaggs, Garret Babcock, and Danny Manion started the frame with three straight base hits. Along with a sacrifice fly by Tyler Gigliotti, Bradford would eventually plate three in the inning to take a 6-2 advantage.
All of this offense was supported by some strong pitching from Danny Manion and Gage Babcock. The two combined to strike out nine Fox batters while yielding just four hits and two walks.
“Our pitching kept us in it and all we had to do was score those few runs,” Fox said. “We had those two back-to-back innings where we hit the ball hard and drew some walks and then got the big hits.”
“We needed Danny to give us two or three innings today to get to Gage,” he added, “and Gage came in and threw strikes like he did and we had all the guys [on defense] in the right places today.”
Fox had its best chance to come back in the top of the sixth, loading the bases with two outs. But Babcock maintained his composure, setting down the final batter of the inning on strikes.
By the time the bottom of the sixth came along, Bradford didn’t even need to put that many balls in play to score. Four walks and two Fox errors were enough to plate six in the inning, with the game-winning run coming via a base on balls from pinch-hitter Drew Piganelli.
The Fox pitching trio of Bullers, Brayden Wildfire, and Nate Dezanet combined for two strikeouts while allowing six walks and eight hits. At the plate, Shane Price went 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Coming off a marathon doubleheader victory over St. Marys on Monday that went past midnight coach Fox noted that it was important for his team to use their time off to refocus, especially with the holiday weekend approaching.
“You play every day and then all of a sudden you have a break in the action,” he said. “You’ve got the holiday weekend coming up and everybody goes off and does their own thing, so you’ve got to bring everybody back together.”
Bradford will be off until Wednesday when it will host St. Marys.
