The Pittsburgh Pandas outlasted the Murrysville Maulers 14-13 at Haymaker Field last night. The Pandas came back from a sloppy start and an early 5-2 deficit and held on for the win after leading 13-6 at one point.
"Six errors is not conducive to winning a baseball game," Pandas coach Mark Schmidt said. "But I will never yell at a kid for physical errors. Mental errors are what is disappointing, and what was disappointing for our team was that when we were up four or five runs, we thought the game was over, and it wasn't."
The Pandas' bats have come alive in the last 10 games. After an 0-5 start, they have won six out of their last 10 games with strong hitting, including a 19-hit perfomance last night.
"We have hit the ball a lot better," Schmidt said. "We struggled earlier in the season because there was a lot of rain and we didn't get the reps. We'd play one day, then we'd be off three days. Now we've played a bunch of games in a row and they're getting good reps, making better assessments at the plate and getting good hitters' counts."
Chris Sidick's fifth-inning single knocked in two RBI, and put the Pandas up for good after a third run scored on an error on the play. Grant Psomas went 4 for 6 at the plate to make up for two early errors, and Stan Posluzny had three hits to lead the offensive charge for the Pandas.
For the Maulers, who gave up a run in the ninth inning when pitcher Art Yerecic balked with the Pandas' Brandon Perry on third base, it was a tough loss.
"We haven't won in a while," Maulers coach Bob Bozzuto said. "We've just had a test of hard luck. Whatever could go wrong, went wrong. Teamwise, we're a pretty good baseball team, it's just with our chemistry, we haven't blended together well, and I think everybody's trying to maybe press a little bit now."
Phil Sabatini had three hits and a solo home run for the Maulers.
A nice homestand might do the Maulers good, as they play host to Columbus on Saturday and Lima on Sunday at Haymaker field in Murrysville.
