The State High Baseball Team took on the Altoona Mountain Lions on a sunny Monday afternoon at Community Field on March 24. The Little Lions were back in action with an encouraging look.
Junior Cody Norman was on the hill for State College facing off against an intense Altoona offense. Altoona jumped ahead early in the first off of an RBI triple and a wild pitch, which put it up 2-0.
The Little Lions’ half of the first started off hot with a single from senior Sebastian Rhoades, but the inning fizzled after the next three batters were retired.
Altoona continued riding its momentum in the second inning as it put up four, including a bases-clearing double, before senior Jude Scavone came in to pitchand got out of the inning. State College continued to hit the ball hard but couldn’t get anything across and it was 6-0 Altoona after two innings.
Scavone’s outing against Altoona included, going a total of three and one-third innings with only one hit, one walk, and picking up one strikeout.
“Honestly, I couldn’t have done anything without my team. They put up all those runs for me, all that run support. It’s just the team itself, man,” Scavone said.
After a sacrifice fly by senior Jack Coleman and a walk drawn by senior Austin Harter, the third inning ended and the score became 6-2.
The fourth inning came around quickly and stunned Altoona. After a few walks and a rally, including a 2-run single off the bat of junior Ryden Walker, State College took a 7-6 lead.
State College held its lead with strong pitching from Scavone before Rhoades came in for the save.
“I’m really proud of our guys. We handled adversity great. That was the definition of a team win, and that’s what we’ve been talking about all week and this past weekend. We needed that, and I think that is a great way to start the season,” Rhoades said.
Rhoades wasn’t the only one who was proud of his team, Head Coach David Williams also spoke on the team’s performance.
“We’ve been preparing as a team. You know, we’re going to run into adversity. We’re going to have runs. They’re going to have runs. Let’s just weather the storm. Stay the course, stay together as a group. And, you know, hopefully fight to the end. And the thing I was most proud of, it was a team effort. And I hope this is the team that we are all here because we could do a lot of great things,” Williams said.
The Little Lions are back at home on Saturday, April 5, when they host a four-team tournament at Penn State’s Medlar Field at Lubrano Park.
