Belmont Inn headed to County finals
Belmont Inn's Sam Beucher started Wednesday's game against Blue Mountain at Carmichaels and went the distance to pick up win in the Fayette County Baseball League semifinal playoff finale.
Blue Mountain's George Taylor makes the catch at second to get Belmont Inn's Cory Boreland out in a game held in Carmichaels on Wednesday.
Belmont Inn's Evan Arison is safe at third as Blue Mountain's Chuck Gasti has trouble catching the ball thrown from left field in a game held in Carmichaels on Wednesday.
CARMICHAELS 鈥� Belmont Inn went down to the wire to eliminate the defending Fayette County Baseball Leauge champions with a 6-5 victory over Blue Mountain Wednesday at Carmichaels High School.
Belmont Inn (17-12) avenged its elimination by Blue Mountain in last year鈥檚 semifinals, taking an early 2-0 lead in the series, before the Copperheads (20-9) evened the semifinal set with back-to-back wins.
鈥淚 told the kids that if we won game five, than no one is going to care what happened in game three and four,鈥� Belmont Inn鈥檚 skipper Steve Kezmarsky said. 鈥淚t feels good to beat such a quality team. They are an awesome team and the defending champs.鈥�
Belmont Inn now plays Bud Murphy鈥檚 in the finals. The seven-game series is set to begin this weekend. Bud Murphy鈥檚 will have several days of rest on their side, as they swept Mitch鈥檚 Bail Bonds at the beginning of the week.
鈥淲e have a big series ahead of us,鈥� Kezmarsky said. 鈥淲e are going to enjoy this now and take a couple of days off. We are going to be the underdogs against Bud Murphy. We beat them three out of the four games in the regular season, but they are playing extremely well right now and are well rested.鈥�
The difference in the series was the starting pitching, as Belmont Inn got solid outings from its staff, including game-five winner Sam Beucher.
Beucher went the distance for the visitors, making the pitches when he had to, as he left six runners on base through his seven innings of work.
鈥淲e just came up short and ran out of gas near the end of this game,鈥� Copperheads manager Richard Krause said. 鈥淲e rallied in the seventh and got some people on the bases, but we made too many mistakes and couldn鈥檛 get ourselves out of jams. I鈥檓 very proud of my guys. We could have easily packed it in and not shown up for game three.鈥�
Blue Mountain plated the first runs in the opening frame when Gene Franks blasted a two-run homer to right field.
Belmont Inn鈥檚 offense rallied in the third, sending all nine batters to the plate and collecting four runs to take the lead.
Nick Erminio smacked a clutch, two-run double with the bases loaded and one out. Mike Pegg then launched a ball to center field for a sacrifice fly, and two batters later, Blake Robinson added an RBI single.
鈥淥ur stars stepped up in that third inning,鈥� Kezmarsky said. 鈥淲e only had eight hits, but they were eight key hits for us. Everyone hit the ball hard and it was a team effort.鈥�
The Copperheads trimmed the deficit to 4-3 in the fourth with a run off of a throwing error by Beuscher.
Belmont responded in the next inning with two insurance runs, courtesy of an RBI base knock by Gio Schiano and a sacrifice fly by Eric Fudala.
The Copperheads made things interesting in bottom of the seventh with an RBI groundout by Franks and an RBI single by Chuck Gasti to make the score 6-5.
鈥淓very game we played against Belmont this season was a tight game,鈥� Krause said. 鈥淚t could have gone either way for both teams in the regular season and in this series. We hit the ball better in the series than in the regular season, but that鈥檚 baseball sometimes.鈥�
Beuscher was able to pitch out of another jam, as he left the game-tying run on base after a groundout to second to seal the series for Belmont Inn.
鈥淪ammy has a strong work ethic,鈥� Kezmarsky said. 鈥淚 think he got stronger as the game went on, and he pitched 14 innings for us in this series. He is the most complete pitcher we have. He is smart and he had nice speed with his pitches.鈥�
听