Waginger near perfect as Flyers roll past Rebels

FORT GAY, WVa. — It wasn't perfect but it certainly was as close as you could get.

Freshman pitcher Barrett Waginger retired his first 13 batters in a row and wound up facing 18 total as he helped the Saint Joseph Flyers rout the Tolsia Rebels 11-1 on Friday night.

"Barrett did an excellent job for us again," said Flyers coach Nick Medinger. "It was also good to see us not have a letdown after the Notre Dame game and come out hitting early."

The Flyers improved their record to 12-6 on the season while the Rebels fell to 4-21.

Saint Joseph had just 8 hits for the game but took advantage of 3 errors in the field by the Rebels.

Carson Lyons led the way by going 3-of-3 with four RBI, Barrett Waginger went 2-4 with two RBI, Evan Aldridge 1-3, Brayden Neal went 1-2 with an RBI, Ian Whaley had a hit and Blake Medinger had an RBI.

The Rebels had just 2 hits — all of which came in the fifth — with Gage Williamson collecting the only RBI off a solo home run and Brayden Rogers also had a hit.

The Flyers rolled off 5 runs in the first inning to grab control of the game.

Lyons got the scoring started with a single back up the middle to score a pair of runs. Aldridge singled to put runners on the corners. Neal knocked a base hit into right field to score Lyons and make it 3-0.

Medinger laid down a sacrifice bunt for the second out of the inning, but Aldridge scored on the throw back home. The final run came when Whaley hit a grounder deep in the hole between short and third, scoring Neal from second and make it 5-0 in favor of Saint Joseph.

The Flyers added a run in the second and 5 more in the third to go up 11-0.

Waginger pitched 4 scoreless innings, striking out 8 of his 9 total batters along the way.

In the fifth, Waginger retired the first batter as Beckham Waginger threw out the batter on a ground ball to short.

But the bid for the perfect game would come to an end just two pitches later when Williamson got hold of a 1-0 pitch and drove it over the high fence down the left field line. After a conference between the umpires, it was ruled a home run.

St. Joseph 515  00  =  11  8  0

Tolsia 000  01  =  1  2  3

Barrett Waginger and Brayden Neal. Gage Williamson, Brayden Rodgers (5) and Brayden Rodgers, Gage Williamson (5). W-Bar. Waginger (IP-5.0, H-2, R-1, ER-1, K-9, BB-0, HBP-1). L-Williamson (IP-4.0, H-8, R-11, ER-7, K-6, BB-2, HBP-3). Rodgers (IP-1.0, H-0, R-0, ER-0, K-2, BB-0). Hitting–St. Joseph: Barrett Waginger 2-3 2-RBI, Carson Lyons 3-3 4-RBI, Evan Aldridge 1-3, Brayden Neal 1-2 RBI, Blake Medinger RBI, Ian Whaley 1-1 RBI; Tolsia: Gage Williamson 1-2 HR RBI, Brayden Rogers 1-2.