Freeport didn’t need another walk-off home run against Ligonier Valley to remain unbeaten Tuesday, but it didn’t hurt that the Yellowjackets’ offense was in midseason form.
Jeff Coller went 4 for 4 with two RBIs, and three other players logged two hits apiece as Freeport swept the two-game series with a 7-3 victory at Ligonier Valley’s new field.
Gage Blystone scattered six hits in going the distance for Freeport (6-0, 4-0), which a day earlier rallied to beat Ligonier Valley, 5-4, on Ashton Bricker’s two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh inning at Freeport.
There were no such heroics in their latest meeting. The Yellowjackets pounded out 14 hits and used a four-run uprising in the third inning to take control.
Blystone, a junior right-hander, gained his second victory while striking out six and walking three after Ligonier Valley took a 1-0 lead in the first.
“He settled down,” Freeport coach Ed Carr said. “For him to throw a complete game after how many pitches he threw in the first two innings (39). Do the math the rest of the way. He was really efficient the last five innings.”
Blystone set down Ligonier Valley in order in the fourth and sixth innings.
“He was being a little bit too fine early,” Carr said. “Then, he started to challenge them a little more over the heart of the plate. He threw the fastball a little more to see if they could catch up to it.”
The Rams (2-4, 0-2) scored in the bottom of the first without the benefit of a hit.
Jacob Petalino reached on a fielding error and advanced to second on a throwing error, moved to third on a sacrifice and scored on a wild pitch by Blystone, who settled down after pitching out of trouble in each of the first two innings.
“You’ve got to throw strikes and pound the zone. They have a very good lineup,” Blystone said.
Freeport knotted the score in the second when Coller scored on Miles Smith’s wild pitch.
The Yellowjackets touched Smith for four runs on four hits in the third to take a 5-1 lead. Blystone’s two-run single highlighted the inning.
Ligonier Valley scored single runs in the third on Gavin Moore’s sacrifice fly and fifth on Smith’s RBI fielder’s choice grounder to pull within 5-3.
Freeport added two runs in the seventh against Levi Moser, who yielded just one earned run over the final four innings in relief for Ligonier Valley. Coller doubled home a run, and Moser walked a run home after intentionally walking Bricker to load the bases.
Monday’s dramatic victory, when Bricker erased a 4-3 Ligonier Valley lead with his winning homer, was on coach Jason Bush’s mind Tuesday when the Rams played for just the third time on their new field.
“We wondered about it. We worried about it for sure,” he said. “I was super worried when we took that punch and went down 5-1 today. I was a little bit worried how we were going to react. But to our guys’ credit — we’ve got a lot of guys who’ve played a lot of varsity baseball — we got it to 5-3, and we’re 5-3 the whole way into the seventh inning.
“I’m proud of the guys that they didn’t fold in that situation. It says a lot for us going forward.”
The new field was funded in part by a $250,000 anonymous donation as well as $600,000 from the Ligonier Valley School District. It was the Richard King Mellon Foundation’s more than $2 million pledge that gave the project the boost it needed.
“This field is unbelievable. I love coming up here,” Carr said.
The field was reconstructed on the original field’s site, but home plate was moved closer to the entrance to the high school. The dimensions include 380 feet to center field and 305 down the left- and right-field lines. The power alleys reach 360.
“This has been in the works for a couple years,” Bush said. “It’s obviously beautiful, and everyone is astounded by it. There were some big private donations where they wanted to update the facilities here at the foot of the school. They did an awesome job.”
The facility is up for naming rights, Bush said. In the interim, it’s simply known as Ligonier Valley’s baseball field.
“It plays fair. It’s a bigger ball park,” Bush said.
Their first visit to the park was good to Carr and his Yellowjackets.
“Ligonier Valley is a good team,” he said. “This was a good win for us.”
You could say “two good wins.”