Middlefield, OH- The Cardinal Huskies (1-1) hosted the Painesville Harvey Red Raiders (1-0) on Monday night. Huskies standout ace pitcher Jacob Bean was on the mound.
Bean began the night with a strikeout, but Ryan Delaney reached on an error. Following the error Blake Brozic and Connor Bates went down on strikes to end the top of the 1st. Josh Soltis scorched a ground ball through the infield to lead off the game for the Huskies. Troy Domen was hit by a pitch, setting the Huskies up with two runners on. Jacob Bean grounded into a fielders choice and Soltis is out advancing to third. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch before Domen later scored on another wild pitch also allowing Bean to advance to third. Moments later Blake Strever drew a walk and set up Carter Tucker with runners at the corners and one out. Strever stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch that scored Bean. Tucker reached via a walk. Strever scored on an RBI ground out by Austin Jones that brought home the Huskies 3rd run of the inning. 3-0 Huskies after one.
A pair of strikeouts accompanied by a fly ball to center fielder Strever retired the Red Raiders 1-2-3 in the top of the 2nd. With two outs Soltis reached first on a dropped pop fly. leaving He was later caught on a steal attempt to end the inning. Bean continued to dominate by striking out the side in the top of the third. The Huskies add a pair of runs to blow it open in the bottom of the 3rd. A rocket off the bat of Bean resulted in a stand up double with one out. Strever then struck out looking. With two outs and a runner in scoring position, Tucker blooped an RBI single to the opposite field to bring Bean across. He advanced to second on the throw to the plate. Tucker stole 3rd and came around to score the Huskies 5th and final run of the game on a wild pitch. Christian Rael strikes out Jones and ends the frame.
Bean opened up the 4th inning with a strikeout, before Brozic reached on an error. After Bates is retired on a swinging strike three, Rael hit a single advancing Brozic to 3rd. Nothing comes of this as Aidan Englehart flies out to center and ends the top half of the 4th. Jackson Puruczky leads off the bottom of the 4th with a walk. Tyler Young pinch ran and stole 2nd base. After two Huskies strikeouts, Soltis singles but is then thrown out advancing to 2nd prior to the run scoring and leaves the Huskies scoreless in the inning.
In the top of the 5th, Rodrigo Flores, Brandon Bildstein and Reed Abercrombie all fall victim to strikeouts by Bean. Domen led off with a line drive single, but was caught in a rundown between 1st and 2nd base, where he is eventually tagged out. The inning ends after back-to-back ground outs by Brozic at short and Englehart at second end the 5th.
Two strikeouts for Bean open up the 6th before Brozic singles to right and then steals second. Following the steal, Bates ropes an RBI single down the 3rd baseline that brings home Brozic for the Red Raiders first run of the game. Bean ends the inning by striking out Rael. Carter Tucker gets his second hit of the night to open the bottom of the 6th but is later out on a fielders choice by Jones. Puruczky flies out to short and then Trent Mooney draws a walk to give the Huskies two runners on. Matt Hissa later grounds out to the third baseman Trent Hull who throws him out to end the inning.
In the top of the seventh, Bean strikes out his last two batters of the game before Bildstein grounds out to second to end the game giving the Huskies the 5-1 win.
Bean went the distance allowing 1 earned run on 3 hits while striking out 18 and allowing no walks. A truly dominant performance as he threw 72 strikes out of his 99 pitches. Carter Tucker paces the offense with 2 hits and an RBI.
Connor Bates was 1/3 with an RBI for Harvey,.