At Chamberlain
Scores
Wharton 18, Middleton 0 (five innings)
Strawberry Crest 7, Chamberlain 0
Pitchers of the day
Strawberry Crest’s Alex Kachler (1-2) had the tallest order of the day and delivered five scoreless innings, striking out four, walking one and giving up just three hits. … Chamberlain’s Zach White went 4 1/3 innings before injuring his throwing arm in the fifth inning. To that point he had held the Chargers to one run, and finished with four walks and a strikeout, giving up three earned runs.
Hitters of the day
Wharton’s John Nieves had just three at-bats but was 3-for-3 with two doubles and five RBIs. Teammate Drew Ehrhard reached safely in all four at-bats, going 3-for-3 with a walk, a double and an RBI. …Brandon Harris reached base safely on all four trips to the plate, going 1-for-1 with three walks, but his single in the fifth scored two and broke the game open. Fellow Charger Harold Welch had just one plate appearance, pinching for Kachler in the seventh. After taking two sliders for strikes, Welch belted one to center, knocking in one and giving the Chargers a 5-0 lead.
Defensive gems of the day
Middleton catcher Logan Seligman had a tough day with nine pitches hitting the dirt. Seligman only let one of them get by him, including taking one off his face mask. …In the bottom of the first inning with a runner in scoring position, Strawberry Crest leftfielder Flabio Garcia got the ball in to the cutoff man in time to halt a run from scoring.
Did you know?
The Pool G title game Tuesday between Wharton and Strawberry Crest, both 2-0 for the tournament, will be their first meeting of the season; an earlier matchup was rained out. The starters will be Cooper Borden (1-2) for Wharton and Austin Boatwright (2-0) for Strawberry Crest, according to their coaches.
Dugout chatter
“We’re a work in progress, we don’t know what we’re going to get day to day. But tomorrow will be a good test. That’s what all of this is; we like to use Saladino as a test for the district tournament coming up.” — Wharton coach Victor Hoffman
“We made a lot of opposite-field contact and let the ball get into the zone. Our approach was good today.” — Strawberry Crest coach Eric Beattie, whose team tallied nine hits and a slew of deep fly balls