Story and photos by CHRIS BROOKS, managing editor, wellsvillesports.com
WELLSVILLE — When things don’t go your way in the game of baseball, you continue to search for every solution possible to put runs on the board. For most of their Monday night battle against Olean, the defending Class B Champion Lions of Wellsville had reached that particular stalemate.
With Huskies hurler Austin Miles holding his own across a pair of quick innings that saw him finish with just over 10 pitches combined, that was efficiency at its finest, to keep the Lions on their feet.
In return, the momentum transitioned to the plate, where the Olean offense was clicking in the early-going against the duo of Ty Vogel and Trent Green on the mound.
Through four innings, the visitors in red and yellow saw many opportunities to provide several damaging sequences with runners occupying the bases. There were close calls at the plate, and there were glimmers of resilience along the way from the Wellsville defense that came with it, which has allowed them to keep Olean off the scoreboard each and every time.
When it was all said and done, the Lions defense came away unscathed, stranding 10 baserunners — six of them off back-to-back bases-loaded jams, all across that isolated juncture.
With their backs pinned against the wall, Wellsville continued to fight, and when there was a will, there was a way. With some special teams aid pulling through in the middle frames, the Lions were able to grab a hold of the game’s first outright advantage. But for the Huskies, despite many missed chances to break the floodgates down, they fought through a heavy barrage of adversity down the stretch to create a level playing surface with the Lions.
The clock read just past 7:30 p.m. in Wellsville, and with darkness beginning to become a factor, the Lions needed to act urgently.
With Olean continuing to lean on their bullpen to keep the score even across the board, so did the Lions. After a pitching change to Aiden Cowburn late in the sixth inning, he proceeded to slam the door shut on what was the third and final bases-loaded opportunity with two enormous strikeouts to keep the Huskies frozen in their tracks.
That momentum created the biggest burst of them all in the bottom of the sixth, in what was Wellsville’s final at-bats of the game. After a start to the frame that saw them load the bases themselves, the scoring commenced with a go-ahead run off a hit-by-pitch.
It would then end with the biggest swing of Brennen Geffers’ career.
The almighty grand salami.
What a time for it.
Slotted into the No. 9 position in the team’s batting rotation, the Lions junior simply made no mistake, launching an absolute nuke to straight away center field to break the game wide open against the Huskies. The swing ultimately served as Wellsville’s metaphorical icing on the cake when Olean eventually worked their way off the field, as the game was soon called due to darkness, which ultimately handed the Lions a 9-4 victory — their third in a row to start the season, after six innings of complete baseball.
“Olean came back and tied the game late, and then we brought Aiden in and he slammed the door shut after they loaded the bases. That gave us a chance to swing the bat one more time. Brennen came up and he just crushed the grand slam. I was so happy to see him get that hit. He works really hard and he spent a lot of time in the preseason working on his swing. To see him get rewarded with a hit like that, it was really nice to see,” Lions coach Tom Delahunt said. “We wouldn’t have been there if Aiden didn’t do what he did. Their pitcher, Miles, worked really fast against us, and he pitched three efficient innings. That’s all it took, and Ty (Vogel) had to work for all of his outs and our innings offensively. He didn’t really get a chance to rest and catch his breath, but sometimes, that’s the way baseball is.”
The Lions (3-0) were left at a standstill after the first two innings of play behind a dominant start issued by Austin Miles for the Huskies, as he used 14 pitches to shuffle through the lineup with back-to-back 1-2-3 stands.
Along the way, the hosts were able to keep their opposition off the board in the same turn, as the defense, fronted by the team’s starting battery — Ty Vogel and Matt Ritter, provided two exceptional run-preventing tags in the first and second innings from within the third base path and at home plate, to help close out the respective frames.
Delahunt says if those two plays weren’t made at the plate, it could have very well changed the complexion of the game.
“We had a couple of wild pitches where it helped produce a couple of great plays at the plate to keep Olean off the board when we were struggling to get runs ourselves,” he said. “The quickness of Matt behind the plate to deliver the ball to Ty for those outs, that was huge for us early and it could have changed the outlook of the game.”
Despite only having one baserunner reach entering the third inning, the Lions offense shook it off and applied two to the bases off back-to-back walks — one of them drawn by Tyler Rahr, who served as Wellsville’s first run of the game following a deep sacrifice to right field by Aiden Cowburn to break the ice with a 1-0 lead.
After the Lions went to the bullpen in relief of Vogel in the fourth inning, Trent Green was hot early on with two straight strikeouts before the Huskies fought back once more, keeping the opposing defense on pins and needles with another bases-loaded situation. With a 3-2 count and a walk from tying the game, Olean remained in neutral after Green finished the frame with his third strikeout.
For his resilient finish in the top half of the fourth, Green then took to the bases to score the next run for the Lions following a lead-off walk, digging for home on a deep stand-up double off the bat of Matt Ritter the very next at-bat to deep center field to double their advantage.
The hit was just the second in the contest for Wellsville, as they utilized their special teams play on their next two runs, with a passed ball scoring Ritter and then a sacrifice to left field by Gavin Haggerty plating Karson Grover for a 4-0 lead.
The lead was lost in the waning stages of battle, as Olean proceeded to score four unanswered runs — three in the top of the sixth, with two of them coming on a base hit single from Ethan Woodring clipping directly off the glove of a diving Cowburn in shallow left field and down onto the ground, allowing OIean to tie the game at four.
But the deadlock would not remain for much longer, as the Lions went straight to work in the bottom of the sixth inning following Cowburn’s brilliant stint of relief to exit what was their final faced jam.
The momentum transitioned to the plate, where Matt Ritter made a break towards third base following a Karson Grover base hit bunt down the third base-line before an Anthony Button walk loaded up the bases with nobody out.
The Lions made the most of everything in the bottom of the sixth, as they springboarded ahead of the Huskies with a hit-by-pitch to pinch hitter Cam Lyons to reload the bases with a 5-4 lead, followed by an enormous grand slam off the bat of Geffers to deep center field that took a direct hit off the top of the school and down onto the ground, to break the game wide open before the umpires officially waved off the remainder of battle due to darkness at the end of six complete innings.
The Lions accumulated nine runs off just four hits, with Ty Vogel chipping in a hit to help round off the offense. On the mound, Vogel advanced his start into the fourth inning, striking out four and walking two.
The win was credited to Cowburn late in the sixth inning, as he provided two big strikeouts to help set up the team’s big finish in their final at-bats.
Up next, the Lions will hit the road for the next pair of contests, beginning on Wednesday with a 5 p.m. visit to Hornell.
Olean 000 013 – 4 8 1
Wellsville 001 305 – 9 4 3
OLE – Austin Miles (K, 2BB), Noah Cartmill (3) (K, 3BB), Taylor Teachman (LP, 5) (3K, 2BB) and Caine DeGolier.
WLSV – Ty Vogel (4K, 2BB), Trent Green (4) (7K, 5BB), Gavin Haggerty (6) (BB), Aiden Cowburn (WP, 6) (2K) and Matt Ritter.
Chris Brooks photo gallery:
