NORTH FAYETTE TWP. — In a wild and crazy game that lasted two hours and 45 minutes, Moon accomplished more than just avenging an April 21 loss to rival West Allegheny.
An 11-5 win Wednesday put the Tigers in position to at least tie the Indians for the Section 2-5A title.
West Allegheny still leads the section at 10-1. But Moon is right behind at 9-1.
“It was a lot different than the first time we played them,” said Moon pitcher/outfielder Sevin Schoeneweis.
The first time they played, West Allegheny put on a text-book display of winning baseball by blanking Moon, 7-0. In that game, the Tigers only managed four hits.
In the rematch, Moon pounded out 14 hits including three solo home runs.
And on a freakish play in the second inning, Moon had two runs taken off the scoreboard. That happened after left fielder Juston Jones dislocated his knee as he swung and tried running to first base.
As two of his teammates scored, Jones was still laying on the ground just a few feet from the batters’ box. As he writhed in pain, the throw to home from West Allegheny center fielder Austin Hendrick was cut off by first baseman Seth Rosen
With Jones laying flat on his back, Rosen ran over and touched first base for the third out of the inning. So the two runs Moon had just scored didn’t count.
“We knew we had to try and forget about (Jones’ injury),” Schoeneweis said. “But we were thinking about him while we were playing. We kind of did it for him.”
It was Jones who hit Moon’s first home run when leading off in the top of the first.
Then in the fourth inning, Ryan Zimmerman, who came off the bench to replace Jones, smacked a solo shot that cut West Allegheny’s lead to 5-4.
One batter later, center fielder Anthony Fachet smacked a solo homer to tie the score at 5-5.
“That was great,” Schoeneweis said of Zimmerman’s homer. “And it’s ironic because a couple of us guys called it just before he hit it.”
Moon took the lead for good on a fifth-inning sacrifice fly by shortstop Cam Goble. The Tigers then took command with five runs in the seventh. Goble drove home the first two of those runs with a two-out single.
“I owed it to the team because of an error I made earlier in the game,” Goble said of a two-out miscue in the second inning that allowed West Allegheny to score two runs.
While Moon was pounding out 14 hits, West Allegheny was held to four. The Indians scored three runs in the first inning and two more in the second.
But after that, Moon starter Nick Maue and Schoeneweis pitched shutout baseball. In fact, West Allegheny didn’t get a hit in the last five innings.
Maue worked 5 2/3 innings but had to move to center field after reaching the 100-pitch limit.
Schoeneweis relieved and picked up the save.
“It’s always nice to beat West A. They’ve been a rival of ours for our whole careers,” Maue said. “’It was especially satisfying to win today because of the way we lost to them the first time.”
“We played as good a baseball game as we could play the first time we played them,” said West Allegheny coach Bryan Cornell. “Today was just the opposite. We didn’t do the things you need to do if you’re going to beat a good team and a good program like Moon.
“Hopefully, we’ll bounce back from this.”
West Allegheny can clinch at least a tie for first place in the section with a win Friday at Chartiers Valley (8-3).
Moon can clinch at least a tie for first place by winning its last two games. It hosts Montour (5-5) on Thursday and Brashear (0-10) on Tuesday.