Blog Archives - Eight & 322/Eight & 27

Knights have the Edge

4/25/2023

Trinity Edge went the yard with the bases jacked as the Knight defused the Rockets again with a fiive-inning 10-0 win.

Edge also struck out 13.

Gabby Laderer got two hits, drew a walk and scored a run while filling in at shortstop for an ailing Syndi Hoobler. Rylie Hanna and Kirsten Hicks each drove in a pair of runs and Autumn Fitzgerald also had an RBI.

Titusville only managed three hits against Edge.

More photos from the game below.

Just one more... Below is a funny photo from a nice moment where the team huddles together at the mound. Abby Boland happened to just look up and all I could think was, that is the game face she needs come playoff time. I suspect it might also be the look I get next time I cover a game after publishing this photo here.

Grove still rolling

4/25/2023

Rocky Grove moved their conference record to 4-1 Tuesday with a straight set pummeling of Cathedral Prep, 25-17, 25-16 and 25-14.

They now move into a tough stretch where they will face Cochranton next and then Conneaut Area again, but this time as a conference game. The last time they played Conneaut it was five set brawl that either team could've won, but the Orioles came out on top. They then will face Saegertown, Mercyhurst Prep and Cambridge Springs.

Not an easy road, but the Orioles are 5-1 overall and playing the best volleyball in years. Highlights from their win over Cathedral Prep: Blayne Baker recorded 19 points, Alex Zinz 15, Joshua Stevenson 13, Wyatt Gregory 11 and Cameron King 10. Zinz led with 7 kills and Avery Purich had 7 digs.

They play Cochranton Wednesday on the road.

Rocky Grove bounced right back

4/20/2023

Eight & 322 file photo

After their loss earlier this week to state ranked Meadville, Rocky Grove bounced right back with a solid effort beating Fort LeBoeuf in straight sets to move their region record to 3-1 and 4-1 overall.

Coach Mike Stevenson said errors from the Meadville match is something they were concentrating on improving, especially in the serving. "We saw an improvement tonight," he said

The varsity won 25-17, 25-14, 29-27 with standout performances from several players:

Camron King 17 pts/4 blocks.
Blayne Baker 17 pts/3 kills.
Joshua Stevenson 15 pts/2 blocks/22 assists.
Alex Zinz 15 pts/3 aces/10 kills.
Wyatt Gregory 7 pts/4 digs.
Avery Purich 7 pts/6 digs.
Wyatt Bell 6 kills/1 block.

They will host Cathedral Prep on Tuesday.

PHOTOS: Franklin met Meadville on the oval

4/20/2023

Titusville sweeps Youngsville at home

4/20/2023

Rocky Grove found out the Bulldogs are for real

4/19/2023

Rocky Grove coach Mike Stevenson knew going up against Meadville was going to be an uphill battle.

Even though the Orioles are off to a solid season start, Meadville led by coach Nick Bancroft, is ranked high in the state and have been to the state championship finals three of the four years of Bancroft's tenure.

And the one year they didn't go was because COVID cancelled the season. That year Bancroft was highly favored to win his second state title in a row.

Meadville Volleyball is an elite program.

The Oriole's held their own in the early part of each set, but the relentless MASH attack proved too much and they dropped the match 25-16, 25-14 and 25-14.

Joshua Stevenson had 20 assists and nine points. Blayne Baker had eight kills and four digs. Alex Zinz added three digs and seven kills. Wyatt Gregory had seven points with three kills. Avery Purich had six digs and six points,

The Orioles now 3-1 will hit the road again Thursday to take on Fort LeBoeuf.

More photos from Tuesday night's match.

See even more photos at https://sayerrich.zenfolio.com/p743214676

Titusville is for real so far this season

4/16/2023

This was the story we did for the Titusville News-Journal this week.

A Titusville Rocket trifecta happened this week for the baseball team. They cruised to a pair of big regional contest wins over Oil City and Franklin and they capped that off by playing a game under the lights on a Major League Baseball field.

This team is having some fun.

Against Oil City, the Rockets jumped out to 4-0 lead in the top of the first on the road. They added a pair in the second and another in the third. All in all they combined for 12 hits and were rock solid on defense, including a bases loaded double play to end the first inning. Their stellar play all game helped the Rocket pitchers Drew Wheeling and Ashton Burliegh combine for the shutout.

Oil City left seven runners on base through the contest.
The Rockets added three more runs in the seventh to put the game out of reach for the deflated Oilers.

The pitchers combined for 12 strikeouts.

"I think he pitched one his best games in high school today," coach Roy Schweitzer said about Wheeling’s five scoreless innings. “And Ashton (Burliegh) did a great job in relief.”

Offensively Landon Baker went 4-for-4 driving in two runs and scoring once.

Mason Titus went 3-for-4 scoring three times and driving in one.

Burliegh also had two RBI's on one hit.

Seven Rockets recorded a hit in the game. "We were putting the bat on the ball," Schweitzer said.

"We were pretty consistent at the plate with our approach, being aggressive going after strikes and laying off the off speed outside pitches."

A couple days later they hosted Franklin, a perennial district contender. “I don’t care what their record is,” Schweitzer said. “We have so much respect for that program.”

Though they didn’t have to face Franklin ace Luke Guth in the contest, they knew they had to be at their best.

Hunter Thomas pitched a gem giving up only two hits and striking out 12. Thomas also had a good day at the plate recording two RBI’s on two hits. “He really took control of the game,” Schweitzer said. “It was an impressive outing for him.

Kasen Neely went 3-4. Burliegh and Nate Stearns also had big hits driving four more runs between them.
“We’ve been having good at bats in every game,” Schweitzer said. Franklin kept it close until the fifth inning when the Rocket’s took off, scoring six in the fifth. They added a couple more in the sixth ending the game with the 10-run mercy rule in play.

On Saturday the team had a chance to play a game at PNC Park in Pittsburgh against Athens High School. The Pirates organization works with schools to give them a chance to play on a big league field in exchange for help selling 500 tickets.

Schweitzer said they have until the end of the season to sell the tickets (see boxed sidebar for details.)
In the game, the PNC Park grounds crew stopped the game after five innings and the Rockets were only down 3-1.

Schweitzer said the Athens team is a good team from the northern center of the state who had played at PNC a couple times before.

Kasen Neely, the starting pitcher, only gave up three runs on four hits in his three innings of work. Kam Mong held Athens to only one hit in his two innings.

Jaxon Covell had the one RBI in the first. Assistant coach, Uriah Sampson, said in a text message. “It was pretty surreal being on the field.”

You can help
The Rockets still have Pirates' ticket vouchers to sell and are looking for community members to help. According to coach Roy Schweitzer the vouchers are $25 and can be used on any game with the exception of nights the Pirates have concerts and one or two of the holidays. Contact any member of the baseball team, their family or the coaches for more information. More information: Email Roy Schweitzer at [email protected]

RG volleyball off to a strong start

4/14/2023

Rocky Grove volleyball coach Mike Stevenson is a learner. He wanted to make the Orioles' program better several years ago, in part because his daughter wanted to play volleyball.

Simple enough.

Within that process grew a need to educate himself. And he has been doing that with the girls program that has become a respected competitor especially in the last few years.

He and his staff built the program to come within a couple wins of a region championship in 2021. He spoke about how each year he was learning new things and the program has been improving and growing as a result.

"Girls volleyball is a year-round sport," he said. The junior high program is a big focus now for the Orioles who are building a program to last.

Last season, Stevenson, who has coached the girls team for about a decade, took over the boys program as well.

His first year with the boys proved to have its own learning curve. He knew he had a team of athletes but still ended up under .500 on the season.

So he went to work in the off-season trying to figure out why.

"The game is so much different for the boys and I didn't learn that quick enough last year," he said. "With the boys, it's all speed and power... how hard you can serve and how quickly you can run an offense."

One very key point from his off-season research has now almost become his mantra. "It's all about the passing," he said.

"Last year we were just trying to get the ball to the target," he said realizing they weren't concentrating enough on how the pass arrived.

Over the first three weeks of this season, the focus has been on passing the ball at the same height with no spin on it in order to build a rhythm.

"A consistent pass allows us to run multiple things on our offense," Stevenson said after his team won its third straight match Thursday night against Maplewood.

He said the players were reluctant to buy into the new approach at first, but have come around.

And they have been seeing the results firsthand with a five-set season opener win against Conneaut Area followed by straight-set victories over Farrell and Maplewood.

Cameron King, Blayne Baker, Alez Zinz, Joshua Stevenson have been constantly scoring a dozen or more points per game.

Baker is averaging almost 10 kills a game.

Stevenson has a large group of sophomores and one of them, Andrew Schwab, recently came up with a big performance. He logged a couple aces and 13 points while filling in for King who had to miss the Maplewood match.

Joshua Stevenson is setting the ball well and it's resulting in over 15 points per game average.

Stevenson said his players are really buying into the system.

"We got off to a good start, but now they will go face Meadville who are ranked pretty high in the state," Stevenson said about the upcoming week. Meadville will be a good test for just how far they have come and be a chance to test their game against one of the best programs in the state.

"I think these guys can (make a) run if we play our A-game."

Another three inning game

4/6/2023

Trinity Edge is a strong pitcher, arguably one of the best in the state. In the second inning of Thursday's game against Slippery Rock, coach Chad Hoobler saw his pitcher give up a walk and then a hit that led to a score. He headed out to the mound even though his team was already up 5-1.

And he talked to her for a bit of time.

"The mound meeting was just a chance to get Trinity refocused," Hoobler later said.

It worked.

Edge quickly finished off the side, leaving a runner stranded.

The game only lasted another inning and a half as the Knight's bats were red hot and they answered Slippery Rock's one-run second with nine runs.

Hoobler didn't appear in a hurry to run up the score. During base hits with runners on, he seemed to play conservatively and instead of sending them home.

Earlier in the week the Knights had a 15-run mercy rule win against Grove City. "Three inning games are not ideal but they are still an opportunity to get better both as a team and individually," Hoobler said.

Seeing his team's ability compared to the young Slippery Rock squad, he chose to bring in substitutes as early as the second inning. Even switching out his first pitcher in the third inning to get his players experience in different situations and configurations.

"As for the game, we wanted to work on certain aspects of our offense," Hoobler said. The Knights combined for 15 hits. They brought 27 batters to the plate in just three innings.

Nine Franklin players got a hit in the three inning 16-1 win.

Franklin is scheduled to play at Sharpesville at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Walk off keeps Oil City undefeated

4/3/2023

For five innings Titusville's freshman pitcher Jordan Wynn seemed to be in complete control. Though she walked five, she would battle her way out of inning after inning. Oil City left seven runners stranded.

At the end of five it was 2-0 in favor of the Rockets who had scored in the first and third innings on RBI's from Wynn and Kyra Adkins.

Around the sixth inning Oil City head coach Michelle Hoovler noticed something.

"We felt (Wynn) was starting to struggle a little bit," Hoovler said. "She was starting to throw more balls. So we were trying to wait her out."

Titusville head coach Megan Green said Wynn wasn't getting the calls on the edge of the plate like she was in the beginning of the game.

Hoovler told her players to be patient at the plate and don't chase pitches. The strategy worked.

The first batter in the bottom of the sixth, Nysa Hanlon, drilled a line drive off the out stretched glove of Rylie McGarvie at second base.
She was then able to steal second on a pitch that got away from the Titusville catcher.

She advanced to third on a fielder's choice ground ball to second by Shayla Hanlon. Then Abby Foley grounded to shortstop plating Hanlon.

Oil City's freshman pitcher Sophia Garmong, who was in in relief, was mowing down Titusville in previous innings, took care of keeping the Rockets from getting insurance runs. She fielded a slap bunt for an easy out, then recorded a strike out before getting the final Rocket batter to ground out to short.

The score was 2-1 going into the bottom half of the seventh.

Libby Arnink had a good at bat finally finding a pitch to put into left field. Shaylyn Whittemore then walked after staying alive with several fouls balls. Then Maddie "man legs" Wenner drew a walk to load the bases. Garmong was up next.

Titusville's strong armed catcher Krya Adkins then tried to make something happen with the bases jacked and tossed a laser down to third that, if handled by the third baseman would've caught the runner off the base for the first out.
But it ended up in right field and Arnick scored to tie the game 2-2.

With the score tied and runners on second and third, it was now Garmong who focussed on the task at hand - to win the game.

"I was thinking I have to hit this, this is my time, my team is counting on me." Garmong said about what was going through her mind as she stood in the batter's box. She then lifted one to right field and watched it as she began to slowly trot toward first. "I was so scared (the right fielder) was going to catch it. I was just hoping and praying it would fall," she said. "Then I saw it hit off her glove and I was like, I'm just going - I just kept going."

It was enough to plate Whittemore for the 3-2 walk-off win. It was their second come from behind win after earlier in the season forcing overtime against Slippery Rock and then winning it in extra innings.

"The chemistry with this team is just fantastic," Hoovler said. "They just work together really well, they fight to the end and they never give up."

Green said that Oil City has a good group of athletes right now and they are capitalizing on that. "We have a good group too, they just have to believe it," she said. "When you get to that point (late in the game) it comes down to which team wants it and (today) Oil City wanted it more."

Titusville falls to 1-2 while Oil City sits undefeated at 3-0 on the season. To put in perspective how high they are riding now. They only won three games from 2019 to the end of 2022.