Springfield rallies past Green Mountain in extras

Boys baseball at Chester.
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News Sports Obituaries Op/Ed Social Lifestyles A&E Calendar eEdition Photos Special Sections Subscribe VPA Baseball Springfield rallies past Green Mountain in extras Cosmos score 13-10 victory in 9 innings By Chris Doherty | May 22, 2015 CHESTER — Seven innings wasn’t enough to decide a winner at Green Mountain. Springfield outlasted the Chieftains 13-10 in nine innings Wednesday afternoon. The two rivals battled from the very beginning and it was a hotly contested game all the way through. “It was intense on both sides,” Green Mountain head coach Logan Little said. Green Mountain held a 10-7 lead going into the seventh inning, but Springfield (8-5) did not shy away from the challenge. Tanner Shumski led the inning off with a walk and came around to score when Kyle White ripped a double into left-center field. White moved to third on a single by Ed Shambo in the next at-bat. Shambo was the final batter that Green Mountain starting pitcher Josh Woods would see. Robert Haseltine came in from right field to try and close the game out. In the process of getting the next two batters out, he threw a wild pitch that allowed White to score and moved Shambo, the tying run, to third. Kyle Weeks jumped ahead in the count 2-0 and did not hesitate when he saw the fastball on the next pitch, driving it into right field and tying the game. Neither team scored in the extra frames until the top half of the ninth inning. Mike Kollman reached base on an error, which started a streak of four straight Cosmos reaching base. Ben Tubbs drove in Kollman — who ended up receiving the save — on a double. Weeks came up and again drove in a run, this time with a triple past the left fielder. Weeks ended the day 3-for-5 with three RBIs. “We showed we’re maturing as a baseball team,” Springfield head coach Rich Saypack said. Springfield jumped ahead 4-1 through the first two innings. The third inning, however, saw Green Mountain make its charge. The first five Chieftains of the inning reached base, which forced Saypack to bring in his senior, Shambo, who started the day as the DH, to pitch. Shambo wiggled out of the inning, but not after Green Mountain put a seven spot on the scoreboard. After that, Shambo seemed to calm down. He picked up the win in relief pitching six innings, allowing just two earned runs on four hits, two walks, while striking out eight. “Coach wanted me to be a senior leader and that’s what I wanted to do, so I came in and shut them down,” Shambo said. “Tonight I think we got our ace,” Saypack said. “That was senior leadership we hadn’t had this year.” After giving up the seven-run third inning to fall behind 8-4, Springfield kept clawing back into the game. In the fourth inning, the Cosmos plated two runs and added another in the fifth to cut the lead to just 8-7. Green Mountain added some cushion in the bottom half of the sixth. Joe Epler was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Jon Little followed with a double off the fence in center. Tanner Bischofberger was also hit by a pitch later in the inning to load the bases with two outs. Woods drove in two with a single to make the score 10-7. “We’re a young team,” Little said. “We need to learn how to close out games. We need to find that extra drive, that extra gear to be able to shut it down at the end of a game.” This is a game Little wants his team to remember. “We never want to forget about a game because every game is a learning experience,” he said. The win for Springfield comes a little over a month after Green Mountain beat the Cosmos 21-4. “The first time we played them we didn’t play like we could,” said Shambo. “That was our motivation tonight; to show them that we could compete with them.” Box Score SPRINGFIELD 13, GREEn MOUNTAIN 10 SPRINGFIELD (8-5) — AB-R-H-RBI: Tanner Shumski 2b 4-2-3-2, Kyle White c 5-1-2-3, Ed Shambo dh-p 5-1-1-0, Mike Kollman 3b-p 5-1-0-0, Ben Tubbs rf 4-2-2-2, Kyle Weeks ss 5-1-3-3, Zeb Reardon 1b 4-1-1-1, Matt Veysey ph 1-0-0-0, Ty Albert lf 5-2-2-0, Zach Tubbs cf 4-0-1-0 Josh Rivers ph 1-0-0-0. Totals 43-13-14-12. GREEN MOUNTAIN (5-5) — AB-R-H-RBI: Josh Woods p-rf 5-3-1-2, , Tommy Knockenhauer 2b 6-0-1-0, Kyle Cyr ss 2-1-0-0, Lucas Trask 3b 5-1-1-1, Joe Epler c 4-2-0-0, Jon Little cf 3-2-1-1, Ben Reilly 1b 5-1-1-2, Robert Haseltine rf-p 5-1-1-0, Tanner Bischofberger lf 4-1-1-1. Totals 39-10-10-7. Springfield 220 210 303—13 14 3 Green Mountain 107 002 000—10 10 5 2B: S — B. Tubbs 2, Shumski, White, Albert, Z. Tubbs. GM — Trask, Little. 3B: S — Weeks. IP-H-R-ER-BB-SO: S — Shambo WP 6-4-6-4-2-8. Mike Kollman S 1-0-0-0-0-0 GM -— Woods ND 6-10-10-8-2-9, Haseltine LP 3-4-3-2-0-4.