Lemont upsets Spring Mills; Howard pulls away from Spring Creek

The Lemont Ducks, the No. 6 and last seed coming into the 2022 Centre County Baseball League playoffs, upset the Spring Mills Braves in their Game 3 showdown at the Shaner Complex on July 10 and qualified for the CCBL semifinals.
In the other first round matchup, Howard had an answer for every Spring Creek challenge and came away with a 9-4 win in Howard, also on July 10. 
The Hawks will now face Lewistown in the semifinals, while Lemont will take on No. 1 seed Blanchard.
Here’s a closer look at each game:

LEMONT MOVES ON
The Lemont Ducks may not have had a very good regular season, but they certainly showed up for their first-round matchup against the Spring Mills Braves.
After losing the first game of the series to the Braves on June 5, Lemont evened things two days later and then scored a come-from-behind, 6-4 win over on July 10 to take the three-game series, 2-1.
Spring Mills opened the game by batting around in the bottom of the first inning and took an early 4-1 lead.
But the Ducks would go on to tie the game after the third inning and then push across the winning runs in the sixth and seventh.
In the Lemont sixth, with the game tied, Alex Singer led off with a triple and then scored on an RBI double by Matt Lingenfelter that put the Ducks ahead 5-4.
Then in the seventh, Tucker Triebold singled and he scored on a two-out hit by Steve Babb that increased the Lemont lead to 6-4.
All the while, Lemont pitcher Gage Shell kept Spring Mills in check and off the scoreboard.
With Spring Mills down to its final chance in the bottom of the seventh, Shell allowed a two-out hit to Colton Treaster but went on to get the final out on a fly ball to shallow right field.
“We knew that we were a better team than we showed in the season,” Lemont coach Cam Aungst said. “But we really showed up for the playoffs. Everyone played well and contributed and we’re excited to be playing more baseball.”
Aungst will get his wish as the Ducks will begin the semifinals this week against No. 1 Blanchard.

HOWARD STILL ALIVE
After Spring Creek stunned the Howard Hawks by scoring three seventh-inning runs in a 5-4 victory on July 7, the defending champion Hawks knew they would be in for a battle in Game 3 on July 10 in Howard.
The key would be to answer the challenges presented by the Shockers, and that’s exactly what the Hawks did in a 9-4 win that moved them into the CCBL semifinals.
Every time Spring Creek scored, the Hawks responded immediately with a run or more of their own. Spring Creek opened the game with a run in the first, but Howards came right back to tie it with one in the bottom of the first.
The same thing happened in the fifth when Spring Creek scored after a one-out double by Joe Bartolai that pulled the Shockers to within 4-3. Howard answered back with an RBI hit by Tyler Schall.
Then in the sixth, Spring Creek again pulled to within a run after a long home run to left field by Tyler Lalli.
This time, however, Howard did not stop at just one run. The Hawks sent eight men to the plate, knocked out four hits and virtually sewed up the game with a perfectly timed four-run rally.
Dan Cole, Kyle Womer and Schall each had RBI hits in the inning, and then pitcher Ty Womer went on to finish the win in the seventh after stranding two runners. 
Womer went the distance for the Hawks, giving up the four runs on 11 hits, including the home run by Lalli.
Bryce Greene, Cole and Schall each had two hits for Howard, with Greene scoring three runs and Cole knocking in two.
The Hawks will now travel to Lewistown for the first game of the CCBL semifinals, scheduled to begin this week. Lewistown, in its first year in the league, secured the No. 2 seed with an 11-4 regular season. PAT ROTHDEUTSCH/For the Gazette
Howard’s Tyler Schall slides safely under the tag of Spring Creek’s Tim Kessling during a recent Centre County Baseball League playoff tilt.