Mountain Ridge dominated the Perry Pumas, winning 7-1 to kick off the baseball season and the Horizon Tournament.

“We made some adjustments we needed to make at the plate,” said coach Lance Billingsley, talking about his team breaking the game open late.

Billingsley's 2017 team is young after losing so many seniors off of last year's state runner-up team. 

Little adjustments such as the ones his team made against Perry will be the norm this year.  

“That’s what our M.O. is going to be this year,” Billingsley said. “We have a lot of guys that are going to be learning on the job.”

The Mountain Ridge Lions had a slow start to the game but battled at the plate and scored two runs in the fifth inning and four runs in the sixth inning after being tied since the third. But it was a senior that led this charge for the Lions on the season opener.

“I have just been listening to what our coaches have been telling us throughout the fall and winter,” said senior outfielder Nathan Gawelko after the win. “We have been working together for a long time and we all have a lot of trust in each other.”

Gawelko went one for two with two walks and scored in each the fifth and the sixth inning for Mountain Ridge. Gawelko hit a line drive that sailed over the outfielders heads to the fence giving him enough time for headfirst slide into third base to leadoff the fifth inning off with a triple.

The Lions capitalized on the leadoff triple when junior infielder Jason Harayda followed up with a hard hit ball into right field scoring Gawelko from third base. This started the scoring that gave the Lions a 7-1 lead.

Mountain Ridge used three pitchers to secure their victory: senior right-handed pitcher Nolan Ruff (four innings pitched), junior left-handed pitcher Matthew Liberatore (two innings pitched) and freshman right-handed pitcher Zach Rogers (one inning pitched).

The three pitchers held the Perry Pumas to only one hit and recorded six strikeouts. The Pumas scored their one run early on a line drive double by senior shortstop Trevor Hauver.

“I liked our at-bats early on,” said Damien Tippett, head coach of the Pumas. “We put good swings on the ball.”

Coach Tippett also really liked what he saw out of junior starting pitcher Ty Pohlman. Tippett said that Pohlmans control was “pretty good” and that his slider was looking good.

“We are trying to instill the philosophy of opening day every day,” said Tippett. “Get excited to play every day and forget about the last day.”

Tippett was not impressed with energy of his team for the first game of the season but he does understand that there is still a whole season left to be played and that nerves are going to play a factor early on.

Coach Billingsley’s goal for his team was to play “team baseball.” The Lions ran a double squeeze in the sixth inning that scored two runs and was exactly what Billingsley meant by “team baseball.”

Billingsley said that his team is going to have to “scratch and pull” without having big hitters on the team this year.

Each team will move to the next game of the Horizon Tournament where the Perry Pumas will host Pinnacle and Mountain Ridge will travel to Shadow Mountain.