BV Legion team stays alive in state tournament

They’ll face Northeastern today after defeating Murrysville on Sunday.

After allowing eight runs in the seventh inning and suffering an 8-2 loss Saturday, the Belle Vernon Senior Legion baseball team stayed alive at the state tournament Sunday with a 3-2 victory over Murrysville.

Despite being outhit 9-4 and trailing until the top of the seventh, Belle Vernon scratched and clawed its way to live another day. The team will play Northeastern at 12:40 today to try and stay alive once again in the double- elimination tournament at North Allegheny High School.

With one out and runners on second and third in the top of the seventh, Mason Suss hit an RBI groundout to tie the game at 2-2. Jake Wessel followed with a double to left field to win the game.

Wessel, Suss and JB Crovak each finished with one hit and one RBI, while Kaden Faychak also had a hit. Alex Nash, who scored the winning run, pitched the full game and earned the win. He allowed nine hits and two earned runs.

Murrysville’s Cole Brinker, who had to take the mound when starter Blake Bertucci reached the 105-pitch limit, was tagged with the loss, getting two outs before allowing Wessel’s game-winning double.

Coming off its first Region 6 championship ever, Belle Vernon dropped to the losers’ bracket of the tournament with an 8-2 defeat against Hughesville to open play Saturday.

Belle Vernon was three outs away from a 2-0 victory, but Hughesville took advantage of mistakes to come storming back.

Crovak, who started the game, walked two batters and then hit one batter to load the bases before AJ Wardropper took over with the bases loaded. He brought two runs home after plunking two straight batters to tie it up with no outs.

Hughesville then came up with a two-run double, a two-run single, another scoring single and a sacrifice fly to make the score 8-2.

Belle Vernon went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the seventh on three groundouts to close out the game.