Troy, N.Y. — Playoff baseball made its return to Joseph L. Bruno Stadium on Wednesday night. The Tri-City ValleyCats embarked on their quest for a Frontier League title, starting a Wild Card, best-of-three series against the Sussex County Miners.
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It’s been a long time coming for the ‘Cats, not having won a postseason game since 2018 when they went on to claim the New York-Penn League Championship. Greg Tagert’s group were in the same spot last year but they fell in the then single elimination wild card round.
Now with a three game series, Tri-City got to host game one, but it was the Miners who struck first on the scoreboard. A Will Zimmerman single to right made it 1-0 in the third but that would be the only run the Miners would score. ‘Cats starting pitcher Connor Wilford was lights out.
Wilford surrendered just that one run in seven innings pitched, allowing only three hits in the process. Wilford played with fire on multiple occasions, getting out of a one-out, bases loaded jam in the third and then a one-out, second and third jam in the fourth.
At the dish, David Glancy would be the ValleyCats spark, ripping an RBI single into center in the fifth, tying the game at one all. From there it was all ‘Cats, scoring five unanswered runs and winning by a final score of 5-1. Tri-City goes up 1-0 in this best-of-three and can now sweep Sussex County this weekend. Game two will be Friday night and a winner take all game three, if necessary, is slated for Saturday, both at Sussex County.