Photos by Kathy Reed and Bob Hockenbrock

By Dom Reed 

MILROY – West End served as the home team against the hosting Mifflin County Babe Ruth All Star team in a nightcap game between two top notch teams.

However, when the night concluded it was Mifflin County that proved to be the better team in the night, winning 10-4 in the opening round of the Babe Ruth Mid-Atlantic tournament Thursday.

It was all scoreless early. Both pitchers had a shutout going Noah Bunch and Landynn Bieber were on point. Bieber kept Mifflin County hitters off balance the first time though.

Andrew Yerger collected the first hit for West End to get things going but that would be the only thing they could do; they would still be stymied by great pitching from the Reedsville product.

Mifflin County cracked the board first on a towering home run by Cohen Leister to start the scoring. The runs would keep coming as Mifflin County would score five in the sixth inning. West End would score four runs in the sixth inning to cut it within two but Mifflin County would add on. The boys in blue wouldn’t be satisfied with that they would put a four spot up in the seventh inning on situational baseball and taking advantage of West Ends mistakes.

Chase Krepps and Max Trawitz had a pair of hits on the night to help cruise past West End on day one.

“In the fourth inning we needed to bring some energy so I was just thinking single and I saw it fly and I just brought energy to the whole team,” said Cohen Leister.

Bunch gave his team a quality start earning the win throwing 80 pitches. He was dominant all night long getting outs when he needed to. It was a whole team effort in Thursday’s win. 

“This feels amazing and i’m going to bring the energy with me into the next games,” said Noah Bunch. “Staying calm helped me pitch well tonight.”

Emerson Lehman had a double driving in a run in the losing effort. West End was shut down by good pitching from Mifflin County.  West End struggled in relief Kyler Helmrich struggled out of the bullpen he would come off the bench and earn an extra base hit but it wouldn’t be enough for West End to get past Mifflin County.

“It’s just one ball game,” MC coach Denny Yetter said. “I told the boys Iive it, love it but come back tomorrow ready to play the next game it’s only one game out of five.”

Mifflin County will play Westfield in the nightcap game on Friday in hopes to remain unbeaten entering Friday with a 1-0 record.

West End will hope to move above .500 in hopes to get back into the win column when they play Roxborough Friday at 4:00 pm in hopes to be 2-1 by the end of the day Friday.