P-O baseball’s Jacob DeSimone uses timely hitting to propel his team over Bellefonte
Philipsburg-Osceola center fielder Jacob DeSimone entered Thursday afternoon’s game against Bellefonte with the same mindset that he always has.
He wants to hunt fastballs.
DeSimone hunted so many fastballs that he ended his day with a 3-for-3, 2-RBI performance and a 4-2 victory for his Mounties ballclub.
His run batted in came on a single through the middle to drive in Sam McDonald with one out in the top of the third. The senior center fielder went on to drive in Justin Ivicic on a 1-out, sacrifice fly in the fifth inning to put the Mounties on the board once again with a 2-0 lead.
“If I get to two strikes, I’ll widen the zone,” DeSimone said. “Anything close, I’ll foul off or put into play. When I came up with the bases loaded, I was really just trying to drive one out far enough for the guy on third to score.”
Next up was Philipsburg-Osceola designated hitter TJ Wildman, who singled on a hard-hit ground ball up the middle to score McDonald and put Ben Gustkey on third base. The Mounties scored their fourth and final run with a single by Lamb to score Gustkey for a 4-0 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth inning.
Philipsburg-Osceola coach Doug Sankey knew that he had to have the runs to feel somewhat comfortable against Bellefonte.
“I just felt like we manufactured a few more runs than they did,” Sankey said. “A couple of guys just took advantage of some of their mistakes. McDonald went first to third and we had a couple of clutch hits there with Jake and Parker with runners on third.”
Bellefonte — playing for just the second time on its renovated field at Governors Park — struck back in the same inning. With two outs and Josh Brown on first after singling, Trevor Johnson hit a ball that lofted into the air and eventually landed over the left field fence for an opposite-field home run for the Red Raiders to trail 4-2.
It just wasn’t enough, with Philipsburg-Osceola’s Parker Scaife slamming the door shut in the seventh inning for a save. Mounties starter Denny Prestash picked up the win, pitching six innings, allowing four hits and two runs while striking out a batter.
Bellefonte coach Jon Clark was proud of his team’s effort, noting that Philipsburg-Osceola wouldn’t easily keel over.
“We’ve been able to make late-game adjustments and those tend to be the better innings for us to get runs on the board when you figure out pitching,” Clark said. “We had opportunities at different times to make some things happen and to execute some things, but it just didn’t work out. (The Mounties) were hitting drives, finding spots and ours seemed to be finding gloves more times than not.”
Philipsburg-Osceola is now 5-2 on the season, while Bellefonte is 4-2. The Mounties will host Clearfield on Monday at 4:30 p.m. while the Red Raiders will travel to Huntingdon on Friday to take on the Bearcats at 4:30 p.m.
