Taconic Hills, Averill Park baseball claim Thursday’s sectional title games<\/a><\/p>\nIn the Class AA opener, Bethlehem took control early and never let go, beating Mohonasen 9-0 to grab the first win in the series. The Eagles entered as the No. 8 seed, two years removed from winning a state title, and got a dominant performance from starting pitcher Jacob Bradt, who threw a complete-game shutout while allowing just two hits.<\/p>\n
After a scoreless start, Bethlehem broke through in the bottom of the third with two on when Oliver Hosang hit a liner that barely cleared the second baseman\u2019s outstretched arms to load the bases. Deven Sood then drew a walk to force in the game\u2019s first run for a 1-0 lead. With the bases still loaded, Sam Spector lined a ball into center to bring home another run, though the inning ended with Bethlehem up 2-0.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem widened the gap in the fifth. With two runners in scoring position and the infield in, senior Bob Frick shot a ball up the middle to drive in two runs as part of a three-run inning that made it 5-0. The Eagles added four more runs in the seventh to seal the 9-0 win. Mohonasen now trails the series 1-0, while Bethlehem can complete the sweep in Game 2.<\/p>\n
In the nightcap, Colonie struck early and often to take Game 1 of the Class AAA title series, defeating Saratoga Springs 14-6 and moving one win away from the championship against the reigning state champions.<\/p>\n
Colonie\u2019s decisive surge came in the second inning. With a runner on first, Blake DeFilippi drove a ball to deep left that one-hopped off the wall for a double, putting runners on second and third. With the bases loaded, Ryder Mackenzie hit a ball into right-center that dropped for a single, bringing home two runs for a 2-0 lead. Still in the inning, Steven Thomas hit a bloop between first and second that fell in, and with no one covering first, he beat the pitcher to the bag for a single as another run scored to make it 3-0.<\/p>\n
The inning continued with the bases loaded again when Brady Juliano delivered what became the big blow, driving a ball to the opposite field into the gap and to the wall for a bases-clearing triple. The six-run second inning put Colonie in control, and Saratoga Springs did not recover as Colonie closed out the 14-6 win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Troy, N.Y. (WRGB) \u2014 Championship week on the baseball diamond shifted to a new format as the Class…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-205982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}