photo by: Kim North

Barton’s Ben Taylor works to the plate during Tuesday night’s 13-5 victory over Bethany in Game 4 of the best-of-5 Ohio Valley Baseball League’s championship series on Russ Schwertfeger Ball Field inside Bethany Park. He went the distance with four strikeouts and no walks.

BETHANY – The Ohio Valley Baseball League championship has come down to a winner-take-all Game 5 on Thursday.

Top-seeded Barton (18-8) recorded 14 base hits Tuesday night off four Bethany pitchers in a 13-5 rout on sun-soaked Russ Schwertfeger Ball Field inside Bethany Park. The victory evened the best-of-5 series at 2. The deciding game will be played on Henning Field inside Pramesa Park in Crescent at 6 p.m.

“We’re going back home,” veteran Barton manager Billy Timko said following Tuesday night’s win. “Like Yogi Berra said, ‘It’s not over ’til it’s over. We’re still playing on Thursday.”

Barton, which lost the first two games to the third-seeded Brewers (17-11) batted around in the first and sixth innings, scoring a combined 11 runs in the two elongated frames, including four in its first at-bat.

That was fine with starting pitcher Ben Taylor, who was making his second start and third appearance in four games. The Wheeling Park and Fairmont State product went the distance, striking out five, walking none and scattering eight hits. He threw 96 pitches, with 72 going for strikes.

“That four-run first really helped me settle into the game,” Taylor said. “I didn’t pitch very well against them in game 2, so I really wanted to make up for that tonight. My teammates had my back tonight with lots of runs. I pitched with the lead the entire game.”

Cooper Blackburn, a Steubenville grad, looped a two-run single into shallow right field to spark the early four-run uprising. Colten Coss and Ethan McHugh had RBI infield singles.

Bethany took advantage of three Barton errors in the bottom of the first to slice the deficit in half at 4-2. Nick Leonard provided a run-scoring base hit.

Kobe Hill doubled off the fence in left leading off the second. He raced home on Jake Winland’s single to right for a 5-2 margin.

Zac Smith’s run-producing single in the fifth bumped the count to 6-3, but Bethany pulled to within 6-5 when Joel Wise sent a towering drive to deep left-center.

“That was really the only mistake I made tonight,” Taylor said. “I gave him two sliders in a row, and he got a hold of the second one.”

The Braves sealed the deal with seven runs in the sixth when a dozen batters stepped to the plate. Blackburn lifted a double down the line in right that scored two runs, while three runs crossed on wild pitches, and one each on a bases-loaded walk and a hit batsman with the sacks full.

The top three batters in Barton’s lineup – Hill (2 singles, double, 2 RBI), Jake Winland (3 singles, 2 RBI) and Coss (2 singles, RBI) – set the tone for the Braves’ 14-hit attack.

“It seemed like everyone put the bat on the ball tonight,” Timko stressed. “That’s what it takes. You’ve got to put the ball in play.”

Bethany player/manager John Santimarino had two of his team’s eight hits. He singled twice, while Joey Dawson singled and doubled. Wise finished with three RBI.

“It’s just baseball I guess. They got some of their players back, and we lost some of ours,” Santimarino said. “But they hit the ball. You can’t take that away from them. They knocked our ace out in the first couple of innings and then continued to hit the ball.”

Leonard, who was 6-0, suffered the loss. He didn’t make it out of the second.

EXTRA BASES

– Barton is seeking its third championship since 2018. They also prevailed in 2020 over Weirton in a thrill-packed 5-game series.

– Bethany is still trying to capture its first championship.

– Timko said Winland would get the ball for Game 5, while Santimarino will hand the ball to Hunter Mozingo, the starter and winner in game 1.

– Joe Banovsky (home plate) and Terry DiBacco (bases) were the umpires.

– The game took 2-hours, 6-minutes.