McConnellsburg (4-1) visited Fannett-Metal(4-3) on Thursday evening for an ICC match up.

Neither team could crack into the scoring column through the first three innings of play.  In the top of 4th the Spartans went down in order while the Tigers struck first for a 1-0 lead.  Landon Arnold singled to lead off the inning and he would eventually steal second.  With two outs, Daxton Detweiler launched an RBI double to dead center to plate Arnold.  

Trailing 1-0 going into the 5th, the Spartans put together a big inning to take a commanding lead.  Reese Alexander’s infield single scored one run before Ryder Hollinshead’s triple down the left field line cleared the bases for a 4-1 lead.  The Tigers misplayed a pop up in the infield on the next play which ended up costing the Tigers three more runs in the inning when Gavin Fowler launched a two out, 3 run homer to left field.  The Spartans came out of the inning with a 7-1 lead.  The Spartans added one more run in the 6th inning to go up 8-1.  

This was more than enough run support for Spartans right hander Landon Gress.  Gress pitched six solid innings, giving up 1 run, 6 hits, 1 walk and 6 punch outs.  

For the Tigers Drew Goshorn pitched two scoreless innings before giving way to Adam Hammond in the 3rd inning.  Hammond pitched well in the 3rd and 4th before running into trouble in the 5th.  Hammond was lifted with the bases loaded and no outs for freshman Noah Naugle.  Naugle got the first hitter to ground out before the Spartans erupted for 7 runs.   “ We put Noah in a very difficult situation there.   We just couldn’t limit the damage with those two bigs hits accounting for six runs in that inning”, Coffman said.  

The Spartans committed no errors on defense while the Tigers had five errors on the day.  “Despite some mistakes in the field,  we gave them a good ball game into the 5th.  Offensively, we had 8 hits but we just couldn’t string them together.   Credit to their pitcher though, he pitched a solid ball game for them and Coach Koontz always gets the most out of his teams”,  Coffman said.  

Offensively, Hammond, Hostler and Detweiler had doubles for the Tigers.  Drew Goshorn and Daxton Detweiler had a pair of hits, while Noah Naugle and Landon Arnold each added a hit.  

The Tigers return to action on Monday evening for an ICC matchup against visiting Claysburg-Kimmel