Barre, Sandstone win Midget semis

By Mike Wertman, Sports Writer Posted 14 July 2016 at 12:00 am

Photos by Cheryl Wertman – Tyler Gibson delivers a pitch for Barre during this evening’s playoff semifinal win over Rotary.

The top two seeds, Barre and Sandstone, scored victories this evening to advance to the Albion Midget League playoff championship.

The semifinal matchups saw top seed Barre trim No. 4 Rotary 6-4 and No. 2 Sandstone down No. 6 St. Mary’s 14-6.

The championship game, which will be a rematch of last year’s title contest, will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Midget League Field. Barre topped Sandstone in last year’s final.

Barre 6, Rotary 4

A big 5 run fourth inning highlighted by two-run doubles by Cade Wolcott and Tyler Gibson keyed Barre to the victory.

Jason Conn and Zandyr Meakin both had 2 hits on the evening for Barre.

Gibson and Meakin shared the pitching duties combining for a total of 13 strikeouts.

Mason Bennett bangs out a hit for Rotary.

Rotary scored twice in the fourth inning highlighted by a triple by Jacob Edwards.

Rotary then pulled to within 6-4 by scoring once in the sixth on a single by Simon Elison and still had two runners aboard but Meakin got Barre out of the jam via a strikeout and a flyout to close out the win.

Nick Martino bangs out a hit for Sandstone.

Sandstone 14, St. Mary’s 6

St. Mary’s jumped out to an early 3-0 lead as Jonny Judd had a two-run single in the second inning.

However, Sandstone answered with 6 runs in the home half of the second highlighted by a two-run double by Jake Hughson and hits by Caleb Fox and Zach Colacecchi to take the lead for good.

St. Mary’s did close the gap to 6-5 in the top of the third on a two-run single by Nick Andrews but Sandstone again answered right back, this time with a three-run home run by Hughson to up the lead to 9-5.

Hughson added a two-run double and Fox an RBI double to key a four-run fourth inning to put a lock on the win.

Hughson had a total of 3 hits and 7 RBIs as Fox and Kyle VanAmeron both added 2 hits.

Jayce Ashton had 3 hits for St. Mary’s as Zac Olles and Brendan LeBaron 2 each.