Lake County Sentinel
Harvey victim of one bad inning in 16-3 loss to Huskies
BY JOEY SCHNEIDER
BEAT WRITER
(PAINESVILLE, OH) — The Painesville Harvey Red Raiders (1-1) took on the Cardinal Huskies (2-1) for the second time in as many days on Tuesday. Monday saw the Huskies pick up the win behind their star senior Jake Bean, one of the areas best prospects, who has committed to Kent State University on a baseball scholarship, pitching seven innings giving up only three hits, and striking out 18 in a 5-1 outing. Tuesday’s matchup saw Harvey’s senior Blake Brozic take the mound in duel against the Huskies Blake Strever.
The top of the first inning saw Cardinal jump out to an early lead as senior left fielder Josh Soltis singled to right and junior shortstop Troy Domen reached first on an error. With two outs Jake Bean stepped to the plate and doubled deep to left. Bean thought the ball went foul as his teammates were flying around the bases to score, Bean realized the ball was fair and was able to only reach second on what may have been even more bases. Harvey’s Blake Brozic settled in after that striking out two of the next three batters and ending the inning.
The pitching was fantastic in the second inning and both pitchers went one, two, three. With Blake Brozic striking out two of the three batters he faced both looking, while Huskies pitcher Blake Strever, struck out the side.
Cardinal struck again in the top of the third with three more runs added behind the bats of Troy Domen, Strever, junior third baseman Carter Tucker, and sophomore first baseman Austin Jones. Going into the bottom half of the inning the Huskies led 5-0. The Red Raiders would not quit though as the dugout was loud throughout the entire game with every player cheering for their teammates, as Harvey cut into the lead. junior first baseman Brandon Bildstein started off the bottom half of the frame with a single. Senior right fielder Reed Abercrombie would lay down a bunt to advance Bildstein to second base. sophomore third baseman Trent Hull, then drew a walk. With two outs and two on, Brozic hit a rocket that kicked off the pitcher, scoring Bildstein, the pitcher fielded the ball and attempted to still throw out Brozic, but overthrew the first baseman allowing Trent Hull to hustle to the plate and score as well. Senior catcher Conner Bates hit a scorcher to third base that was fielded and thrown to first, and again was over the head of the Huskies first baseman allowing Brozic to reach home and Bates advancing to second. senior DH Christian Rael singled up the middle giving Harvey runners at the corners with two out, and a chance to tie the game, but Strever was able to get the strike out to end the inning with the Red Raiders nipping at the heels of Cardinal 5-3.
The top of the fourth inning is where everything that could go wrong did go wrong for Harvey. A walk, single, and walk to load the bases for Cardinal was enough for head coach Ryan Delaney to make a pitching change. Hull replaced Brozic with bases loaded and no outs. Brozic ended his day pitching three innings, giving up eight runs, seven earned on seven hits, walking two, and striking out five. Hull didn’t fare any better after walking three batters and giving up five more runs without recording an out. Hull was relieved by freshman Ryan Delaney as the score was 13-3, still with no outs. The Huskies would end the inning with a 16-3 lead that included a two run homer to dead center field by Bean.
Both teams then make some substitutions allowing for younger players to gain some playing time. After recording one more inning, the game ended 16-3 in a run rule loss after five innings for the Red Raiders.
After the game I spoke to Harvey’s head coach Ryan Delaney after the huddle broke to ask what he said to his players about the game and if he had a message for them. “We give them (Cardinal) credit, they played a good game. Their pitcher came out and did what he was supposed to do and throw strikes.” “The message to the team is that’s one game. That’s all it is. Good teams, bad teams, and everything in between have those games. We take it we learn from it and we continue to grow.” “We’re a young staff, I’m going to take part of that (loss).” “The big inning, (top of the fourth) I’m going to take part of that because we could have made some decisions a little bit better, and the guys could have executed a little better. We win as a team, we lose as a team, and sometimes it’s not about losing it’s about learning and we are definitely going to learn from it today.”
Painesville Harvey drops to 1-2 on the year while Cardinal improves to 3-1. Harvey will have a chance to bounce back in their next game, Thursday at Edgewood (1-2) with a 5:00 pm start time.
Painesville Harvey Players of the Game
Catcher Conner Bates- 1 for 2, single, stolen base
First Baseman Brandon Bildstein- 2-2, two singles, one run
POSTED 04/04/2022 00:58
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Harvey senior Blake Brozic. Photo by Antmediaa