Cutters lose home opener to State College

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Tony Sanchez's first foray into professional baseball didn't go so well. The Pittsburgh Pirates' first-round draft pick in last week's draft grounded out in his first at-bat with the State College Spikes on Friday night at Bowman Field.

His second at-bat went much better as the Boston College product singled to right field in the top of the ninth inning to give the Spikes a 4-3 win over Williamsport in the Crosscutters' home opener. Sanchez's single was the last of three straight one-out hits for State College in the ninth inning off of the Cutters' Jordan Ellis.

Williamsport mounted a scoring rally in the bottom of the ninth inning when Michael Dabbs singled to right and Spikes shortstop Brett Willemburg couldn't make an over-the-shoulder catch behind second base. But David Doss flew out to right field and Carl Uhl flew out to left field to end the game.

The Cutters' Jon Pettibone earned a hard-luck no decision after pitching five brilliant innings in his Cutters' debut. Pettibone pitched two-hit baseball during his first outing of the year, striking out six. Five of his first six recorded outs were by strikeout.

After picking up 18 hits in a drubbing of State College in Friday's season opener, the Cutters continued their hot hitting ways in the first inning.

Leandro Castro, who was 5-for-6 Friday, hit a one-out double inside the third-base bag. Jeremy Barnes followed with an RBI single to score Castro.

After Barnes stole second, Michael Dabbs hit a two-out single between third and short to score Barnes for a 2-0 Cutters' lead.

The run support was more than enough for Pettibone during his outing. The California native who had just one inning of professional baseball under his belt prior to last night, struck out the first two batters he faced before getting out of a two-on, two-out jam with a strikeout.

Pettitbone retired eight in a row between the first and fourth innings before giving up a one-out triple to former Cutter Justin Byler in the fourth. With two outs, Pettibone induced a groundball up the middle which the Cutters' Evan Porter, a draft pick last week out of Division II Nebraska-Omaha, dove to his backhand side to make the stop, and got to his feet to throw out Matt Payne and save a run.

Porter's play was one of a half-dozen stellar defensive plays during the Cutters' home opener. Castro made a tremendous diving catch near the right-field foul line in the second inning.

State College finally broke through offensively in the sixth inning after Pettibone had been lifted, having thrown 76 pitches (50 strikes). After Brett Willemburg led off the inning with a bunt single, he advanced to third on a pair of passed balls before scoring on a broken-bat single by Byler.

Rubenstein then doubled to left field before Byler scored on a balk by the Cutters' Reginal Simon to tie the score at 2-2. Payne lifted a run-scoring sacrifice fly to center field to give the Spikes a 3-2 lead.

Jeremy Barnes made sure State College didn't have the lead for long. The Williamsport shortstop homered in the bottom of the sixth inning, just a half inning after the State College took a one-run lead.

Barnes' solo drive over the left-field fence would have been a two-run blast if State College's David Rubenstein hadn't made a full-extension diving catch in the right-center field gap one pitch prior to rob Leandro Castro of a hit.