MORGANTOWN – Tradition never graduates.
When it comes to high school baseball in the state of West Virginia, Bridgeport’s tradition is hard to beat. The Indians have won nine state titles and have owned the Class AAA Region 1, Section 2 competition since bumping up to AAA four years ago.
Meanwhile, the University High School baseball program is trying to start its own tradition under second-year head coach Brad Comport. The Hawks, ranked No. 5 in the latest poll, are looking for their first section title since 2016.
On Friday, the Indians (18-13), relied on that tradition and a great pitching performance from junior Rowan Michaelis to pick up a 9-2 victory. The win forces a winner-take-all contest today at 1 p.m. at Mylan Park’s Shilling Field for the sectional championship.
Michaelis allowed just five hits, one walk and struck out seven in the complete-game victory.
“I was trying to stay away from the middle of the plate and the high strikes against their bigger hitters,” Michaelis said. “I just kept it low and kept them thinking with off-speed pitches.”
This was the first win of the season for the Indians against the Hawks (20-9) who had won the previous three contests thanks to a potent lineup that was held at bay on Friday.
“We didn’t have great at-bats all day long,” Comport said. “It was evident in that we only had five hits. That’s not typical of us.”
Bridgeport grabbed an early 1-0 lead in the first inning when Zach Rohrig scored as Mark Biafore was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
The Hawks tied the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the first as Brodee Latocha led off the inning with a double to left field. Cody Thomas plated Latocha with a single to center field.
That was the closest the Hawks would come the rest of the contest as the Indians scored three runs in the third, one in the fourth, one in the fifth and broke the contest open with three runs in the sixth.
In the previous three meetings, the Indians had committed several errors. However, on Friday, Bridgeport just committed one error and finished with 12 hits while watching the Hawks commit three costly errors of their own.
“Their pitcher did a nice job of keeping us off balance,” Comport said. “We weren’t stringing base runners together and any momentum we would get would get quickly shut down.”
Veteran Bridgeport coach Robert Shields said the pitching and the solid defense were a big difference in the victory.
“We have had some good pitching performances in the last two days,” said Shields, who has watched his team battle back through the loser’s bracket. “We knew we needed to be able to execute defensively. We have been shooting ourselves in the foot against this team. We are a young squad, but we are almost 30 games into the year, and we have kind of settled into a lineup.”
Phil Reed led Bridgeport’s offense with three hits and two RBI while Conner Blake, Dom Peasak and Grant Lively each had two hits.
UHS was led by Latocha who had two hits while Noah Braham added a double off the right-center fence. Gabe Jansen took the loss for UHS on the mound as he pitched three and one-third innings for the Hawks who used four pitchers in the contest.
BY ERIC HERTER
Bridgeport 9, University 2
BHS 103 113 0 – 9 13 1
UHS 100 010 0 – 2 5 3
BHS – Rohrig 3 1 1 0, Bastin 5 1 1 1, Reed 3 0 3 2, Blake 4 1 2 0, Biafore 3 0 1 3, Currey 4 1 1 0, Peasak 2 1 2 0, Baun 3 1 0 0, Via 1 0 0 0, Lively 4 1 2 2. Totals 33 8 13 8.
UHS – Latocha 4 1 2 0, Thomas 4 1 1 1, Braham 3 0 1 1, Campbell 2 0 0 0, Croston 3 0 1 0, Templeton 2 0 0 0, Jansen 2 0 0 0, Walters 2 0 0 0, Smolkin 3 0 0 0. Totals 25 2 5 2.
2B – BHS: Biafore. UHS: Braham, Latocha.
WP – Michaelis 7ip, 5h, 2r, 1er, 1bb, 7k
LP – Jansen 3.1ip, 5h, 5r, 2er, 3bb, 0k
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