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Sports

Bethel Park Outduels USC 2-1 in Make-up Game

Panthers pitching gives up only one hit, but Logan Corrigan's complete game 3-hitter was enough to edge USC in a tight game.

The crack of thunder was replaced by the crack of the bat. All is good again at Western PA ballfields where pitching mounds are beginning to look less like islands surrounded by water, and more like actual pitching mounds.

Thursday afternoon's make-up game between Upper St. Clair and Bethel Park was decided by the pitchers that stood on that pitching mound.

Three Panther pitchers combined to pitch six innings of one-hit ball in the 2-1 loss.

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Matt Fraudin went the first four innings giving up one hit. Steve Gannon ran into trouble in the fifth, pitching just 2/3 inning, and giving up four walks. Matt Wilcox got out of a bases loaded jam in the fifth with a big strikeout and then struck out the side in the bottom of the sixth as well.

Logan Corrigan was the lone Bethel Park pitcher and he didn't need any help. He pitched a complete game 3-hitter showing great control walking just one, while striking out three.

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The game was scoreless in the bottom of the second with Bethel Park's Grant Brown at the plate. Brown drove one deep to center off Fraudin. The only question would be which car in the parking lot over the center field wall would the ball strike.

"It's gone," yelled a Bethel Park player from the dugout the moment the ball hit the bat. 

USC had their best scoring chance of the game in the second inning. After an Alexander Ott error at first base, the panthers loaded them up with two outs before Corrigan got Steve McMurtry to ground out to second base to end the inning. USC trailed 1-0 after two innings.

The game would remain quiet until Zach Tobias smashed one hard to deep center to lead off the top of the fifth. Bethel Park's Jonathan Kobal made a sweet diving catch in right-center to rob Tobias of what was sure to be a lead-off triple.

In the bottom of the fifth, USC manager Jerry Malarkey brought in Steve Gannon to pitch. Gannon had control trouble walking four batters in his 2/3 of an inning before Mike Wilcox came in relief to strike out Grant Brown, who had homered earlier, with the bases loaded. USC now trailed 2-0.

Before the top of the sixth coach Malarkey, who is in his 27th year as manager for the Panthers, gathered his team together for a pep talk that appeared to do the trick.

Mike Wilcox — who had just struck out Brown to keep USC in the game — led off the inning with a triple to deep center. Corrigan would hit the next batter, Erik Wolstem, to put the tying run on base. However, Corrigan was unflappable. He would retire the next three batters, and USC would only score on Matt Garbin's sacrafice fly. Bethel Park led 2-1 and would hold on for the sectional win.

"We've been scoring 11 to 12 runs a game, that was a strange one," said coach Malarkey after the game.

He wasn't sure who he would start tomorrow when USC hosts Pine-Richland at home at 4:15 p.m., weather permitting. The loss was the first in the section for the Panthers, they drop to 1-1 in conference play. Bethel Park improves to 2-0 in the conference with a pair of one run wins.

Wilcox led USC going 2-3 at the plate with a double and a triple. Jack Elliott had the only other Panther hit, a single in the second inning. Bethel Park's Logan Corrigan faced just 27 batters, six over the minimum in his complete game victory.

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