MINERSVILLE — The weather conditions were cold with a light precipitation, but it wasn’t enough to slow down the red-hot Minersville Battlin’ Miners (3-1). The Miners capitalized on 10 Mahanoy Area walks and five errors while collecting six hits in a 12-2 win over the Golden Bears in five innings at Del Hauck Field.
Minersville struck first in the first inning after Garrett Sukeena reached on an error, before stealing second and taking third on another Mahanoy error. He would later score on a wild pitch in the inning.
The Golden Bears put together their best inning at the plate in the second, as back-to-back singles from Derek Alvarado and Colby Wagner put runners on first and second before Ryan Zilker ripped a third straight hit into right field, scoring both Alvarado and Wagner.
Battlin’ Miners starter Camden Rogers was able to stop the bleeding there as he pitched four innings, allowing three hits and striking out four.
“Cam did a nice job of gutting it out,” Minersville coach Shane Spotts said about his starting pitcher’s second inning. “It’s not an easy day to pitch today with the cold, and it was getting flurried at one point, and Cam did a nice job of just competing and battling.”
In the third inning, Minersville broke out for eight runs, taking advantage of eight free passes in the inning while collecting several hits in the process. By the time Mahanoy was able to record the third out in the inning, Minersville turned a 2-1 deficit into a commanding 9-2 advantage.
“They did a nice job of looking for their pitch,” Spotts said. “If it wasn’t there, they kind of just spit on it and moved on to the next pitch, and we just kind of took what they gave us there that inning.”
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Minersville clinched the win after back-to-back walks to start the inning set up Nolan Plesnarski, who picked up his third hit of the day, belting a single to right field. A Mahanoy fielding error on the play allowed Plesnarski to advance to second while scoring two runs. One batter later, Aidan Ryan ended the game, singling into centerfield to score Plesnarski, giving Minersville their second win of the season by run rule.
For Minersville, the win marked their third straight after dropping their season opener to Shenandoah Valley. In their three wins, the Battlin’ Miners have outscored their opponents 32-5 and have scored at least eight runs in all three games.
“Over the last three games, we’ve done a nice job of minimizing mistakes defensively,” Spotts said about his team’s key to success. “Our pitchers have thrown strikes for the most part. In high school baseball, if you can throw the ball over the plate and pick it defensively, you’re going to give yourself a chance.”
“We probably struck out a little bit too much for my liking today,” he continued. “But we worked deep counts and tried to get into hitters’ counts as much as possible. The kids have done a nice job of looking for their pitch and capitalizing on other teams’ mistakes.”
Minersville will look to continue to capitalize on other teams’ mistakes on Tuesday evening against the Schuylkill Haven Hurricanes in Schuylkill Haven at 4:30 p.m.
Mahanoy Area will look for its first win on Monday afternoon when they travel to take on Columbia Montour Vo-Tech at 4:30 p.m.