photo by: Kim North

Photo by Kim North Wheeling Central’s Kade Koroneos follows through after delivering a pitch during Monday’s game at the St. Clairsville Jr. Sports Complex against Caldwell. The Maroon Knights won 13-0, in four-and-a-half innings.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE – In the W.Va. Class A state championship football game last fall, Wheeling Central’s Kade Koroneos rushed for more than 400 yards and seven touchdowns. That, along with what he had already done during his career, earned him a scholarship to Denison University.

However, the Maroon Knights senior showed his athletic versatility Monday when he tossed a 1-hitter in their 13-0 romp past visiting Caldwell in four-and-a-half innings on Unified Bank Field at the St. Clairsville Jr. Sports Complex, the very same field – minus the turf infield – that he grew up playing on.

“It was a really great feeling to play here, especially when you grew up here,” Koroneos said. “My curveball was really working today. I was getting a lot of ground balls.” He recorded eight groundball outs.

Wheeling Central (16-3) head coach Todd Cover wasn’t surprised by the lefty.

“Kade is a really, really good pitcher,” he stressed. “I think we have a lot of depth on the mound and he is another guy that can provide us that depth. He throws the ball really well. His off-speed stuff is really good and he throws it pretty hard for a lefty. We try to use him in sports and today he threw really well.”

The only hit yielded by the southpaw was a soft liner that ticked off the top of a leaping Jake Brown at short with two outs in the top of the second. He threw 63 pitches – 37 strikes – and faced two batters over the minimum and struck out six. Besides the base hit by Lucas Baker, the only other runners to reach came on a pair of base-on-balls, one of which was erased on a 6-4-3 double play in the fourth.

“I just told the kids in the huddle that I thought our energy was down a little bit today, but that happens when you play a big game in your last game, but other than that, we played a pretty clean game,” Cover said. “I didn’t think we hit it (the ball) like we normally do, but we had a couple of lucky bounces and some walks. You add it all up and it equals a win.

“It was a revenge win for sure,” Cover added. Caldwell (7-8) won 3-2 earlier this season in eight innings.

Koy Lipinski’s RBI double down the line in left with two outs in the bottom of the first scored Koroneos who had drawn a walk. It was the first of three hits and a like number of runs batted in for the Maroon Knights standout.

Wheeling Central made it 2-0 with the help of a Caldwell error in the second before it sent 10 batters to the plate in the third and a dozen in the fourth, with 11 of those coming around to score.

In addition to Lipinski, Clay Petry (single, double), Trent Lander (2 singles) and Matt Criniti (2 singles) all had multi-hit games and drove in a run each. Brown ripped a two-run double and finished with three ribbies, while Max Trout had two RBI.

Wheeling Central closes out the ‘home’ portion of its schedule Tuesday when Indian Creek visits the St. Clairsville Jr. Sports Complex. It will be senior night for the Maroon Knights.

“This year’s senior class is really the class that turned Wheeling Central baseball around as freshmen,” Cover noted. “We had a good senior class last year. This year we have a lot of depth. Those two classes really helped the turnaround and we want to send these seniors out the right way.”

The first pitch is set for 5 p.m.