No. 2 Steel Valley baseball rebounds against No. 5 Burrell

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, April 14, 2018 | 12:03 AM

After a tough loss at Valley earlier this week, Steel Valley's next trip along the Route 56 bypass was more fruitful.

The Ironmen, ranked No. 2 in Class 3A, got back on track with a 5-1 victory over No. 5 Burrell on Friday afternoon at Huston Middle School.

Steel Valley (3-3, 2-1) starter Nick Harhai went six innings, struck out seven and yielded just three hits.

The Ironmen struck quickly, loading the bases with none out in the first inning. The Burrell infield turned a double play while Ray Chuba scored.

It looked as if Bucs left-hander Tanner Spohn might get out the inning with minimal damage. But a wild pitch allowed Josh Fossick, who reached base on a bunt single, to score.

Steel Valley added another run in the third when Chuba doubled, went to third on a wild pitch and scored when the throw to third hit Luke Virag in the face and caromed toward the hillside.

Virag left the game for precautionary measures.

“The kids were extremely disappointed after the Valley game but came to work (Thursday), and all the focus was on energy, doing the little things and picking each other up,” Ironmen coach Tim Vickers said.

“The key was us making mistakes and letting them score the runs in the beginning. Those are runs which we should have never given up,” Burrell coach Mark Spohn said.

Designated hitter Gavin Bowser singled and scored on a base hit by Zack Miller to cut the Steel Valley lead to 3-1. The Bucs loaded the bases with one out, but Harhai struck out the next two hitters.

Five of Harhai's seven strikeouts came when Burrell (3-1, 2-1) had runners in scoring position.

“That was an amazing job by a sophomore pitcher,” Vickers said. “We thrust him in against great competition here at Burrell. It is every single year. We gave him the ball, and he did a fabulous job keeping this team together today.”

Chuba had a single, a double, a walk and scored three runs. He made three solid plays at shortstop, backhanding a grounder in the hole to retire Corey Christie in the fourth and moving well to his left twice to snare liners.

“He's the spark plug in this offense,” Vickers said. “If you watch him the whole game, he's the one who gets everyone going. This year, he's taken a leadership role. It reminds me of his brother, Andrew, back in the day.”

Burrell smacked a number of hard-hit balls, but Ironmen defenders were there to make the play.

“We hit the ball fairly hard at times, but we struck out too many times,” coach Spohn said.

Bucs catcher Tyler Mock walked three times but was left in scoring position each time.

George Guido is a freelance writer.

Tags: Burrell, Steel Valley