Greenwood's slam propels Coatesville past Kennett
Daily Local News, Wed., March 26, 2008

Sam Greenwood’s grand slam in the fifth inning helped visiting Coatesville trip Kennett, 13-3, in a Ches-Mont League baseball game Tuesday. It was the league and season opener for both teams. Greenwood’s fly ball bounced off the centerfielder’s glove and over the fence. Anthony Collins drove in three runs with a double for the Red Raiders. Brian McDowell had two RBIs for Kennett. (0-1, 0-1).

Coatesville Baseball Is Bounced By Truman
Red Raiders struggle with walks, lose 10-4
Daily Local News, May 20, 2008 - By PETER DIGIOVANNI

CALN - Old habits sometimes die hard. For the Coatesville baseball team, it ended its season.

The Red Raiders went back to their early-season pitching control problems Monday afternoon against Harry S. Truman in the first round of the Class AAAA District 1 playoffs.

Coatesville used eight pitchers and had a stretch in the deciding fourth inning where three different hurlers threw 16 straight balls to walk the Red Raiders out of the game and the playoffs, in a 10-4 loss.

Coatesville (10-10), the No. 7 seed, went from a 2-1 deficit to a 6-1 hole in the top of the fourth, as Red Raider Coach Hal Ziegler used four pitchers in the inning, desperately looking for someone to throw a strike.

"It looked like starter Adam Boyd had had it" Ziegler said. "I don't know if his arm was bothering him or not but I had to make a change. Then it was just looking for someone to get the ball over the plate. That is what hurt us early in the year and today it came back to bite us big time."

The 10th-seeded Tigers (11-9) got a strong six-inning performance from senior James Brown, who struck out nine Red Raiders and used a heavy fast ball to get ahead of the Coatesville hitters. Brown only walked one batter in his six innings of work and he said the toughest thing was sitting through the long 34-minute top of the fourth.

"I tried to run in the dugout to keep fresh," Brown said. "It was very long but it didn't bother me too much after I got back out there."

A big turning point for Brown and Truman came in the bottom of the fifth inning when it looked like Coatesville was about to mount a rally.

P.J. Groff led off the inning with a solid double to right field. Kyle Leonard followed with a single to put runners on second and third with nobody out. Up stepped Boyd, and on the first pitch, he hit a come backer to Brown, who looked off Groff at third and wheeled to second to start a 1-6-3 double play and put the Coatesville uprising to sleep.

"Coach Vitale (Jeff) got on me about looking the runner back to third," Brown said. "He wanted to just get an out at that point, but it worked out for us. That play was a big energy booster for our team."

Truman added four more runs in the top of the sixth to take a 10-1 advantage. The big hits were RBI singles from Brian Beyer, Josh Patman and Dustin Milewski. Vitale thought that playing in the Suburban One League this season against the likes of North Penn helped his team in the opening round.

"Our league was very good at the top this year," Vitalle said. "North Penn is a very good team and playing some tough squads may have helped us today. James did a great job for us. Coatesville gave us some gifts with all the walks but I thought James pitched a very good game." The loss ends the Red Raiders' season but Ziegler was already thinking about next year, and he hopes the playoff experience will help his underclassmen.

"We played a lot of the young kids today," Ziegler said. "I hope this taste of the playoffs will help them. I also hope they don't forget the bad taste this left in our mouths. This loss was tough to take."