Bees eliminate Fairmont Senior, 4-3

Brayden Gorby came on in relief of Bigelow for the Polar Bears and Joey Alvaro executed a perfect sacrifice bunt to move the runners to second and third with one out.

Connor Graffius was the next East Fairmont batter and he lined a single to left center field scoring McNight to put the Bees ahead 4-3.

“I was looking for a fastball, got it and made a very good swing on it,” Connor Graffius said. “I didn’t want that to be my last at-bat or game in my career, so I just wanted to come through in a clutch moment for us.”

East Fairmont coach Joe Price could not have been more proud of how Connor Graffius and his team played against the Polar Bears.

“Connor came up big in a big situation and that is something I expect from him in that time at the plate,” Price said. “This was a very good baseball game between two really good teams, goot pitching by both of us and we just came up one run better.”

“We also made some excellent defensive plays late in the game to give ourselves a chance to win in extra innings. We turned a double play and two good plays in the outfield were very big.”

The Polar Bears had a good scoring opportunity to win the game in the bottom of the seventh inning with the game tied 3-3.

Cam Peschl singled and stole second. One out later, Logan Canfield walked to put runners on first and second base. But, Brody Bledsoe, the third EF pitcher, got Bigelow to bounce into an inning ending double play to send the game to extra innings.

Then with a 4-3 lead, centerfielder Ian Graffius came in to make a diving catch of short fly ball to begin the eighth inning and leftfielder Alvaro made a running catch of a liner in left center field to keep the Polar Bears from getting any base runners early in the inning.

However, with two outs, Fairmont Senior’s Matt Howvalt doubled to left center to get into scoring position to give it a chance to tie the game. But, Bledsoe got the final Polar Bears batter to ground out to second base ending the game and preserving a sectional victory with a chance to still win a sectional title.

The Bees will now have to travel to Oak Glen to play for the sectional championship. However, they will have to beat them twice since Oak Glen went unbeaten through the winner’s bracket. The first game is scheduled for Saturday at 4 p.m.

Bledsoe was the winning pitcher for East Fairmont going two shut out innings giving up two hits. Bigelow was the losing pitcher for the Polar Bears.

Hayden Jones, who started a pitched seven strong innings for Fairmont Senior to get a no decision, had a RBI single in the first inning to put the Polar Bears up 1-0.

The Bees responded with three runs on two hits and took advantage of a key FS error in the top of the second inning for a 3-1 lead. Ian Graffius and Jake Vincent each had RBI singles, while Owen Music drove in the other run with a fielder’s choice.

The Polar Bears tied the game 3-3 in the bottom of the second inning as Canfield had a two-run single to score Tyler Veltri and Gunner Riley.

The game stayed that way until the eighth inning due to the excellent pitching of Jones for Fairmont Senior and Music for East Fairmont. Music started and went 5 2/3 innings before leaving after reaching his pitch count of 110 pitches.

Canfield led all hitters in the contest for Fairmont Senior going 2-for-3 with two RBIs.