photo by: Kim North

Wheeling Central’s Andy Bailer slides safely into third base Tuesday night during a W.Va. Class AA Region I, Section I Tournament game at Tyler Consolidated in Kidwell. The Maroon Knights won, 8-2.

KIDWELL – Todd Cover has been around the baseball diamond a few times during his career, both as a player and head coach. He knows his Wheeling Central baseball team will have to play better than it did Tuesday if it is to achieve its ultimate goal.

The top-seeded Maroon Knights (22-3) spotted Tyler Consolidated a 2-0 lead in the top of a whacky first inning before storming back for an 8-2 W.Va. Class AA Region I, Section I Tournament victory.

The game was played in Tyler County due to unplayable conditions at the Wheeling University diamond inside the I-470 J.B. Chambers Complex in Elm Grove. The Silver Knights (14-14) will now host Oak Glen Wednesday in an elimination contest.

With the win, Wheeling Central, also ranked No. 1 in Class AA, will await the winner of Wednesday’s game. That victor will have to defeat the Maroon Knights twice for the title, starting on Thursday.

“We didn’t make it easy on ourselves. We walked the first two batters and then committed a two-run error,” Cover recalled. “We just weren’t ready to play. I sensed it in warmups.

“It doesn’t matter how good of a team you think you have, if you play with intensity and a purpose, you’re going to get beat,” he stressed. “Luckily, we made enough plays to win this game, but we’re not going to go very far if we continue to play like this.

“It wasn’t our best performance, but, hopefully, we learn from it and come out stronger the next game.”

After a pair of pitches – both balls – from Brayden Cover to Brayden Neff to start the game, lightning sent both teams to their respective dugouts for nearly an hour before play resumed. A Maroon Knights error allowed both Tyler Consolidated runs to score.

“Brayden had some arm pain so we brought Mattie in in a pinch-hit role and he delivered,” Coach Cover said. “He did a great job and we have a lot of confidence in Mattie. He’s been doing it for three years for us.”

Wheeling Central responded with five tallies in the bottom of the inning as it recorded three of its seven hits and took advantage of a pair of throwing errors by Tyler Consolidated.

“We didn’t make the routine plays early that we usually do,” Tyler Consolidated head coach Robbie Jones said. “We battled for seven innings against a really good ballclub. We’ve got to play them quite a few times over the past several seasons, so I know who they are and they are good.”

Braxton Billick reached on an infield single leading off and Gary Hatfield reached on an error as Billick advanced to third. Seth Cover’s grounder to first scored Billick before Zayne Rosnick was hit by a pitch. After Rosnick stole second, Koy Lipinski ripped a double to the gap in right-center as Hatfield and Rosnick scored to make it 3-0. The fourth run crossed on an error and Luke Tiu hustled out an infield single as courtesy runner Andy Bailer raced home.

The maroon Knights added to their margin in the second as Kade Koroneos drew a bases-loaded walk with two outs to force in Hatfield who singled to open the inning, stole second and went to third on a passed ball.

After Brayden Cover couldn’t continue due to a sore right shoulder, Max Criniti entered and retired 15 of the 18 Silver Knights he faced to close out the game. He struck out five and didn’t walk a batter in throwing 44 pitches in his five-inning stint. Thirty-two of his offerings were strikes. In comparison, Brayden Cover had thrown 53 pitches in two innings.

Wheeling Central added an unearned run in the third and capped the scoring on a Tiu sacrifice fly in the sixth. Tiu, the No. 9 hitter, had three singles, a trio of stolen bases and two RBI.

“I’ve said all year that our No. 9 hitter is just as good as our No. 1 hitter. I think we have nine hitters in our lineup every game,” Coach Cover added. “We have confidence in every single one of them, so it’s not surprising that the bottom of our order has carried us. It’s happened before and I hope it happens again.”

All told, Wheeling Central swiped eight bases as Hatfield also had three and Rosnick a pair.

“We have a lot of speed and a lot of athleticism. We weren’t hitting the ball as sharp as I’ve seen us, so we tried to manufacture some runs and it worked to our advantage,” Coach Cover continued.

Tyler Consolidated received doubles from Landon Boggs and Reese Davis.

One other negative for Wheeling Central was the number of runners left on base – 12, with 10 of them in scoring position.

“That’s not a recipe for success,” Cover said.