by Brent Hovey
Reporter
Aurora -- The Greenmen had a chance to separate themselves from the rest of the teams in the Chagrin Valley Conference Chagrin Division baseball standings last week.
They entered the week as the only team with one loss in division play. But a disappointing split in two games against West Geauga left them in a tie for first.
Aurora lost at West G., 7-3, on May 5, but was able to win 8-3 the next day. Heading into this week's action, the locals were 13-8 overall and 5-2 in the division.
Last week's outcomes dropped them into a tie with Orange (10-6 overall and 6-2 in the league).
Aurora and Orange were to play May 12 and 13 in a series which would go a long way toward determining the division champion. A sweep by the locals would gaurantee no worse than a tie for the CVC crown.
AHS coach George Snider called the 7-3 loss to West G (4-11, 2-6) a "strange game."
Aurora scored one run in each of the first two innings before the Wolverines cut the lead to 2-1 in the third After five frames, it was 5-2 in favor of West G.
Joe Taylor took the loss, dropping to 4-2.
"We didn't play good defense and Joe Taylor didn't pitch his best, for whatever reason," said Snider. "You got to lose sometime. We had our fair share of baseball gods on our side and [in this game] they weren't."
THE BASEBALL gods, and the offense, was back in the scond game.
In the first and second innings, AHS scored three times each, but it could have been more, as double plays ended threats both times.
Steven Yung led off the bottom of the first with a single and Andy Mitroff and Taylor followed with two more. Yung scored on Mitroff's hit when West G's leftfielder let the ball get past him.
Mitroff and Taylor moved to second and third on Rob Lajeunesse's fly out to center, and Ty Watson singled to score both.
The bases were loaded after T.J. Deininger reached on an error and Adam Bellamy walked.
The inning ended when Ian Sanford hit a hard one-hopper to the shortstop, who turned it into a double play.
In the second, Nick Phillips reached on an error, stole second, moved to third on Yung's groundout and scored on a wild pitch.
Mitroff and Taylor followed with their second hits and scored on Lajeunesse's 2-run single for a 6-0 lead.
The inning ended early again when Watson hit a blooper down the right field line. The fielder made a diving catch and doubled up Lajeunesse, who couldn't get back to the bag.
MEANWHILE, Watson was cruising on the mound. Through the first three innings, he faced the minimum nine batters, didn't give up a hit until the fourth and struck out the side in the fifth.
In the sixth, he ran into a jam, giving up a double, walk and RBI single and an infield hit before Sanford relieved him.
Sanford gave up a sacrifice fly to make the score 7-2 before retiring the side. He gave up one more run in the seventh.
The Greenmen scored a run in each of the fifth and sixth innings.
Watson doubled and scored on a wild pitch in the fifth. In the sixth, Mitroff got his third hit of the day, Lajeunesse's doubled him to third and he scored on Watson's sac fly.
Watson pitched five innings, gave up 2 runs, 5 hits and struck out 6. At the plate, he went 2 for 3, with a double and 3 RBI.
Mitroff finished 3 for 3 with 3 runs scored, and Lajeunesse went 2 for 4 with a double and 2 RBI.
The Greenmen are scheduled to host Streetsboro on May 15 at 4:15 p.m. in the Division II sectional tournament. If they win, they would travel to Field on May 16.
The locals also are slated to play a makeup game May 18 at 6 p.m. at Progressive Field in Cleveland against CVC foe Kenston.
E-mail:
bhovey@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3155