Cooper Ball’s dominant pitching season continued Tuesday, June 2, as did the Horseheads baseball team’s bid for back-to-back New York state championships.
Ball pitched a 1-hitter against Section 8’s Garden City in a New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class AA subregional at Maine-Endwell High School. The junior right-hander struck out 9 and walked 3.
That followed a 4-hit shutout for Ball in Game 1 of the Section 4 Class AA championship series. Horseheads ended up beating Vestal, two games to one, to advance to the state tournament after capturing the Class AA title last season.
Dmitri Charlanow’s single drove in the only run of Game 1 of the sectional series. He was the Blue Raiders’ hitting star Tuesday, going 3-for-3 with a homer, 2 runs, and 3 RBIs.
Charlanow’s 2-run homer in the second inning put Horseheads up 2-0. He added an RBI single in the sixth for the final run.
Ball went 2-for-3, including a 2-run single in the fifth inning to make it a 4-0 lead.
Horseheads’ Beckett Doane went 2-for-3 with a double and 2 runs.
Horseheads head coach Andy Scott credited Hunter Matkosky for making “three huge defensive plays at first base” to help preserve the shutout.
Up next
Horseheads (18-7) will take on Section 6 champion Hamburg in the regional final at 7 p.m. Friday, June 5 at ESL Ballpark in Rochester. Hamburg won its subregional, 5-1, over Section 5’s Webster Schroeder on a walk-off grand slam.
This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Horseheads baseball advances behind Ball’s 1-hitter, Charlanow’s bat
Reporting by Andrew Legare, Elmira Star-Gazette / Elmira Star-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
