Headed to States
Philip Barbour earns first trip in 50 years after defeating Hawks
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NUTTER FORT -- For the first time since 1975, Philip Barbour is headed to the high school state baseball tourney.
The top-seeded Colts of head coach Jonathon Carpenter secured the Class AA, Region II best-of-three series with a 2-0 win over second-seed South Harrison Saturday at Frank Loria Memorial Field.
Philip Barbour (22-6) will be the third seed in Charleston, battling No. 2 Logan (27-4) Thursday night at GoMart Ballpark.
Top-seed Wheeling Central (25-4) faces No. 4 Wyoming East in Thursday's other semifinal set to start at 5 p.m.
The Colts and Wildcats take to the field 50 minutes after the conclusion of that contest.
Kale Wolfe allowed six hits over 6 1/3 innings to earn the win on Saturday. The left-hander fanned six and walked three.
Landyn Carpenter retired the final two batter to earn the save.
In a pitcher's duel between Wolfe and the Hawks' Seth Gain, the contest remained scoreless until the top of the sixth inning when Philip Barbour scored the game's lone runs.
Nick Gonzales started the rally with a one-out single and Carpenter then reached on a fielder's choice.
Carpenter advanced to second on a wild pitch and then raced home on Tyler Sisson's single to to center.
Kent Rowan followed with a triple to make it 2-0.
South Harrison threatened in each of the final two innings.
Brogan Medina led off the sixth with a double but Wolfe struck out two of the next three batters to end the inning.
Then in the seventh, Jaxon Anderson led off with a double and Corey Saltis followed with an infield single.
After another Wolfe strikeout, Carpenter entered and got two groundouts to end the game.
Gain all went seven innings to taking the loss. He allowed seven hits, struck out eight and walked just one.
Gonzales had two hits for the Colts, while Saltis had a pair of safeties for the Hawks, who ended the season 22-25.