Edison bounces back to top Big Red

MAKING CONTACT — Edison’s Cole Pittman gets his bat on the ball against Big Red Tuesday evening at the Crimson Complex. – Andrew Grimm

STEUBENVILLE — Baseball is a sport where a team does not have to wait long to put a loss behind it in the heart of the season.

Edison showed a perfect example of that on Tuesday.

After a disappointing loss to St. Clairsville Monday in the OVAC tournament semifinals, the Wildcats put it behind them on a 24-hour turnaround with a 5-1 victory over Big Red Tuesday at the Crimson Complex.

“It was a good bounce back for us,” Edison head coach Mike Collopy said. “It’s a weird situation where you go from playing for something to right back into a regular season game, but our guys responded.

“Coming in here and playing a program like that with the coach they have, I think that helped us get dialed back in a lot knowing we had to come out here ready to play.”

Big Red third baseman Landon Crosier makes a throw to first for an out against Edison on Tuesday. – Andrew Grimm

After a scoreless first two innings, Evan Kimmerle put Edison on the board with one swing, smacking a two-run homer for a 2-0 lead.

After Edison let a chance to pull away further get away by leaving the bases loaded in the top of the fourth, Big Red (4-7) cut the lead in half in the bottom of the fourth when Hayden Hicks led off with a triple then scored on a wild pitch.

In the top of the fifth, though, the Wildcats (10-3) did take advantage of a chance to add to the lead. Kaiden Russell drove in a run with a fielder’s choice, then Chase Freeman’s RBI single plated two more to make it 5-1.

“It was big to get those three runs, we left a lot of guys on base and it wasn’t our cleanest game, but we battled and both of our pitchers did their job,” Collopy said.

Those pitchers were Bryce Rogers (one run and two hits in 5 2/3 innings) and Kyle Long (no hits and no runs in the final 1 1/3 innings) shutting things down the final four innings to seal the Wildcat win.

FOLLOWING THROUGH — Edison’s Bryce Rogers follows through on his throwing motion against Big Red on Tuesday evening. – Andrew Grimm

“We had two hits and they weren’t timely, they got timely hits and we didn’t,” Big Red head coach Fred Heatherington said. “That’s the difference in the game. We got guys on base, we just couldn’t get them in. We have to keep working.

“It comes down to the timely hits and we’re not getting them. One of these games we will start getting them, hopefully it will be tomorrow.”

UP NEXT

Edison: Hosts Heartland Christian today.

Big Red: Is back at home to host Brooke today.

Edison’s Bryce Rogers lines up a pitch against Big Red on Tuesday. – Andrew Grimm

Edison 5, Steubenville 1

E 0-0-2 0-3-0 0 — 5 10 2

S 0-0-0 1-0-0 0 — 1 2 1

EDISON (10-3): Rogers (WP, 5 2/3IP, 1R, 1ER, 2H, 10K, 2BB), Long 1 1/3IP, 0R, 0H, 1K, 0BB) and Henderson. Kimmerle, HR, S, 2RBIs; Freeman S, 2RBIs; Pittman S; Rogers S; Long S; Henderson S; Meadows S; Russell 2S, RBI.

STEUBENVILLE (4-7): Borsch (LP, 6 1/3IP, 5R, 5ER, 10H, 3K, 8BB), Kokiko (2/3IP, 0R, 0H, 1K, 0BB) and Simmons. Hicks T; Dobreff S.

<!–