Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
D-East stays perfect in league by edging West
UWCHLAN » Friday afternoon, the Downingtown East baseball team showed it is for real.
The Cougars, behind some superb starting pitching from Hutch Gagnon and relief from Josh Domeier and Grant Umberger, took down the three-time defending champion Downingtown West Whippets, 5-3.
The East victory puts them at 7-0 while the Whippets fell to 6-2 in the tight National Division race.
With Gagnon and Whippet ace Drew Britt battling each other, it was a 1-0 game in favor of the Cougars after three frames. Gagnon struck out eight Whippets in his five innings of work.
“I had my fastball and changeup working well for me the whole game,” Gagnon said. “Then, I made some minor adjustments to my curveball and it helped me out in the later innings. Today was a huge game but they are all big. Every game is big and we try to play every game like it is our last.”
West did not go down quietly however. The Whippets took a 2-1 lead in the top of the fourth when Evan Williams reached on an error with one out, and then Andrew Ciliiberto took a Gagnon fastball deep and over the left field fence for a 2-1 Whippet advantage.
The Cougars did not blink, however, at the defending champions’ burst of power. East rallied in the bottom of the fourth off Britt. With one out, Albert Choi laced a single up the middle. Tommy Hammett followed with a single to right and then Britt hit Mike Rodriguez with a pitch to load the bases with one out. Connor Munnelly grounded a ball to short that was misplayed, scoring Choi to tie the game at 2-2. The Cougars took the lead when Zach Burton lofted a sacrifice fly to left and the Cougars had their lead back at 3-2.
“It was huge for us to come right back at them and take the lead,” Cougar coach Pete Susi said. “This team all picks each other up and they play for each other. It is a real good team atmosphere and so far in the early season they have responded to every situation.”
Downingtown East scored two more in the bottom of the fifth off Whippet reliever Ciliberto. The Cougars scored two runs on just one hit but were aided by three Ciliberto walks and a hit batter to make it a 5-2 game after five innings.
Gagnon’s day was done and Domeier came in and got Eric Grintz to fly to right. The ball seemed to be lost in the sun by the Cougars’ Joe Cestare, and Grintz wound up at second with no one out. Two batters later, Williams ripped an RBI single, but Domeier got out of more trouble and the Cougars had a 5-3 after six.
Sophomore Grant Umberger came in to pitch the seventh for the Cougars and he set the champs down, getting the dangerous Grintz to fly out to end the game with a man on base, and the Cougars remained undefeated on the season and in firm possession of first place in the Ches-Mont National.
“This was not one of our better performances,” Downingtown West coach Dave Oleszek said. “We struck out too much and we had some errors like we did against Avon Grove, our other loss. But, the kids will come back and work hard and we will get right back at it.”