MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Daniel Grabo’s fifth-inning triple with two outs allowed University to tie Spring Valley at 5.
When Grabo next hit in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and one out, he sent a fly ball to right field deep enough to comfortably score teammate Max Cash with the winning run on a sacrifice fly, lifting the Hawks to a 6-5 victory over the Timberwolves in a Mon County Classic contest at Shilling Field.
“We’ve preached to our guys how good they are, so to come out and get a win against a team of that caliber is huge for our guys,” UHS head coach Travis Renner said.
The Hawks (6-8) got a leadoff single from Cash to start the seventh. He moved to second on Brock Shuba’s sacrifice bunt, before teammate Brance McCune was hit by a pitch. Both runners then advanced on a wild pitch, leading to the Class AAAA No. 4 Timberwolves (10-3) electing to intentionally walk Tommy Montague.
Grabo capitalized with a fly ball that produced the second out, but more importantly, the winning run to give UHS its only lead.
“University played with energy. They stayed in the game and they were loud. They wanted it a little bit more than us,” Spring Valley head coach Austin Pratt said. “Sometimes our guys think we can walk out here and win a ballgame just because we have a decent record. The defense was kind of ugly in that inning. Credit them — they had a good bunt and it snowballs sometimes.”
Brody Spencer proved a tough out throughout the matchup starting with single in the top of the first that helped lead to him scoring the game’s first run on a single off the bat of teammate Jonah Harold.
Three straight Timberwolves reached with one out in the third, including Spencer, who drove in a run with his second single.
Harold, Spring Valley’s starting pitcher, helped his cause with a two-run single later that inning, leaving University facing a four-run deficit.
But after Hawks’ starting pitcher Devin Enos prevented the Timberwolves from adding to their lead in the fourth, UHS broke out in a big way to draw even at 4.
A leadoff double from Brock Shuba helped ignite the all-important frame, and he scored his team’s first run on a wild pitch. A Spring Valley error brought in the second run, while Barrett Shuba scored on a balk and Colson Jenkins had a well-executed squeeze bunt to bring in Grabo with the tying run.
“A lot of our victory today goes to the guys in the dugout. We’ve preached throughout the season that the energy in our dugout keeps guys up and keeps guys going,” Renner said. “There was no quit today. Whatever the score was, they were in here showing fight in the dugout and it kept our guys on the field playing.”
Spencer’s leadoff single in the fifth led to him scoring a go-ahead run on Harold’s groundout, but the Hawks got even in the home half of that inning after Barrett Shuba singled and scored on Grabo’s triple to right. The successive hits came with two outs.
Enos retired the side in order in the sixth and worked around Spencer’s two-out single in the seventh to put his team in position to score the walk-off win.
“We’ve squeaked by and won some games early that we probably shouldn’t have won,” Pratt said. “We’re 10-3, but I’d say we’ve only played about four clean games. I’ve told them, but they need to see it sometimes. Hopefully it wakes them up and we clean up our defense.”
Spencer finished 4-for-4 and Harold added two hits and drove in four runs. He allowed four runs in four innings, surrendering three hits, issuing four walks and striking out seven in a no decision.
Enos allowed seven hits, struck out a pair and walked one.
“He was an absolute bulldog,” Renner said. “He was in command of his pitches the whole day and didn’t let anything bother him — good or bad. He was locked in and kept it level the whole game. He kept filling up the zone and it didn’t matter what the score was after each inning, he knew he was going out to do his job the next inning. There was just enough time for our hitters to come through and help him out with some run support, and then he was able to finish the job.”