Cunningham, Jeannette keep rolling with win over Jefferson-Morgan

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, April 13, 2018 | 9:30 PM

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With a bending curve keeping up with the tenor of a firm fastball, Jeannette senior pitcher Tre Cunningham twirled a three-hit shutout and kept his scoreless streak intact as the No. 5-ranked Jeannette baseball team beat No. 4 Jefferson-Morgan, 7-0, on a finally warm and sunny Friday at Buster Clarkson Field in West Jeannette.

Cunningham (2-0), who struck out nine and did not walk a batter, has not allowed a run in 18 innings this season for the Jayhawks (5-1, 3-1 Section 2-A), the defending WPIAL Class A champions.

“Tre can mix it up and throw strikes,” Jeannette coach Marcus Clarkson said. “So far, so good. As he gets stronger, he's going to throw even harder as the season goes on and the curve ball is looking great.”

Cunningham, the Tribune-Review's basketball player of the year, has 22 strikeouts and four walks in 18 innings.

“I kept the fastball low and worked the curve ball in with the fastball to throw them off,” said Cunningham, who threw 93 pitches. “My slider was working, too. I had a good switch-up today.”

Jeannette did all of its scoring over the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to break open a scoreless game. It scored five in the sixth as 11 batters came to the plate.

Jeannette has outscored opponents 44-10.

Tyler Elliott had two hits and two RBIs, Drake Petrillo singled, doubled and drove in a run and Michael McCabe added a two-run double for Jeannette, which has won four in a row.

Jefferson-Morgan (3-2, 2-2), the Section 2 champion last year, never got a runner to third base and aided Jeannette's cause with three errors.

The change-of-pace weather conditions were just as welcoming as the shutout for Jeannette. Clarkson Field looked to be in midseason form, but the Jayhawks coach thinks there is more potential to be uncovered in the offense.

Repetition, Clarkson believes, will prepare hitters for more disciplined at-bats.

“Us not having a lot of practices outside, not a lot of at-bats, some of these guys see ball and think they're power hitters so a lot of times … guys think they hit the ball out of the ballpark, and they can't,” Clarkson said. “We need have to start being able to hit some line drives and not a lot of popups like we have been doing. After a while, we got to them and I was proud of that.”

The Rockets held steady for much of the day as freshman starter Bryce Bedilion worked 5 ²⁄₃ innings and got Jeannette to hit fly balls right to defenders. Left fielder Colten Davidson didn't have to move to catch four flyouts.

Bedilion threw just 16 pitches over his first two innings.

Jeannette's first run came in the fourth on a passed ball that scored center fielder Seth Howard, who had singled. Howard moved to third on a bad pickoff attempt.

Bedilion paid extra attention to baserunners all afternoon, and while one pickoff worked, another one went awry in the fifth. Derrick Miller singled and moved to second on that botched throw-over.

Three batters later, shortstop Tyler Elliott singled him in with two outs to make it 2-0.

“We had to wait for good pitches,” Elliott said. “We couldn't start swinging at bad ones. We had to have good at-bats and go deep in the count. Hit your pitch, hit it where it's thrown.

“We started off slow … once we get one hit, we just keep on coming.”

And they did.

In the sixth, after Howard reached on an error, Petrillo doubled to score Howard. Right fielder Nick Caesar knocked in Petrillo with a single and an error in the outfield for a 4-0 advantage.

McCabe's deep double brought in two more, and the Jayhawks kept gnawing at Bedilion as Elliott ripped another single to plate McCabe and make it 7-0.

“I think we have a really good hitting lineup, and I think once it clicks together we're going to be able to put up some runs,” Clarkson said.

Bedilion was pulled in the sixth after he hit Zander Malik with a pitch, having allowed all seven runs on nine hits.

“We kept hitting the ball hard, and we found the gaps later on in the game,” Cunningham said. “Coach tells us keep hitting it hard … that's what we did.”

Cunningham had help from a defense that did not commit an error and turned a 6-4-3 double play in the fourth: Elliott to McCabe to Petrillo.

Bill Beckner Jr. is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bbeckner@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BillBeckner.

Tags: Jeannette, Jefferson-Morgan