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Coming off knee injury, Montgomery’s Miller sparks Red Raiders

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette Montgomery’s Brayden Strouse, left, high fives first-base coach Ty Drick during Wednesday’s game against Bucktail at Montgomery.

MONTGOMERY — Trevor Miller missed most of his sophomore season after undergoing knee surgery the previous winter. Now the Montgomery junior is coming back strong.

And Wednesday afternoon, the entire Montgomery team showed it can do the same thing.

Miller went 2 for 3 with a triple and three RBIs as Montgomery answered an eight-run Bucktail fourth-inning by scoring the game’s final 11 runs and defeating Bucktail, 18-8, in six innings. The Bucks turned a 7-0 deficit into an 8-7 lead, but Montgomery (2-0, 2-0 Mid-Penn) answered with six runs in the bottom of the fourth, delivered 12 hits and received strong relief pitching from Steven Prince as it won its second straight.

“We got a little bit down but our coaches picked us right back up. They’re really good at doing that,” Miller said. “I was still very confident we were going to come back and win this. We’re a very good team.”

“What I love is our resilience with the senior leadership that we have. You saw that tonight. You’re going to make mistakes and things are going to happen, but they way they fought back right away and kept their heads up and came in and got it done was impressive to see,” first-year Montgomery coach Ross Drick said. “It’s always good to be tested early in the season because you’re going to get many tests down the road and it’s all about how you react the first time. They didn’t flinch tonight and I think it proves that we can look forward to a team that is going to battle back from any situation.”

Miller has done that since watching most of his sophomore year go by. The team’s clean-up hitter is a potential force in the middle of the lineup and set Montgomery’s hard-hitting offensive tone in the first inning when he launched a two-out RBI triple to the left-field fence. On nearly any other day, Miller’s shot would have easily been a home run, but winds which gusted over 30 mph kept the ball barely in the park.

After walking in the pivotal fourth inning, Miller helped Montgomery start breaking things open. Just like in his first at-bat, Miller excelled with two strikes and rocketed a two-run single up the middle which made it 15-8. He nearly had a chance to build on those stats but was left on-deck in the sixth inning when Gage Yohn hit an RBI grounder to bring Brayden Strouse in with the winning run.

“I was feeling pretty good today,” Miller said. “It makes me more appreciative to be out there on the field playing with my teammates.”

“Trevor is in the heart of our lineup and he hits with power,” Drick said. “With the knee injury he had, to see him come back this year and be fully healthy is only going to help us in the long run.”

Montgomery needed help after Bucktail completely turned the game around and erupted for eight fourth-inning runs to take an 8-7 lead. The Bucks batted around, produced four hits and took advantage of three errors that inning. Tanner Riggle and Devin Serafini hit two-run singles that tied the game and Serafini put Bucktail ahead when he scored on a two-out error.

Bucktail suddenly had Montgomery on the ropes, but the Raiders responded with a haymaker. Two innings later, they landed the knockout blow. Seniors Hunter Budman and Strouse ignited the six-run fourth-inning surge with consecutive one-out singles. Both scored on an error, Tyler Shadle hit a sacrifice fly and Hayden Ross (3 for 4) scorched an RBI triple down the left-field line. As quick as Montgomery fell behind, it regrouped and took a 13-8 lead. The wild fourth inning featured 14 combined runs, eight hits, five errors and 20 batters.

Montgomery would rather have put this game away earlier, but it also learned a lot about itself by how it handled some early-season adversity.

“This does help us down the road a lot,” Miller said. “If we get down against a team like (defending Mid-Penn champion) Millville we can’t keep our heads down. We have to come back.”

Prince threw two valuable shutdown innings and looked good in his first time playing in a few years. The junior right-hander allowed just a single in two innings and struck out three. That gave Montgomery a chance to end the game early and the Raiders took advantage in the sixth, scoring three times. Thayden Miller was hit by a pitch, Budman walked and both scored when Strouse hit a two-run triple. Yohn then hit a hard grounder down the third-base line. Strouse forced a throw to first and then sprinted home, just sliding under the tag and ending the game.

Strouse (2 for 4) reached base in all five at-bats and scored five runs. He, Miller, Ross and catcher Vaughan Ault (2 for 3, RBI) all delivered multi-hit performances, giving Montgomery 21 hits in its first two games. Montgomery hit well with two strikes and two-outs. Four of its first five hits came with two strikes and Montgomery also scored eight two-out runs.

“We have a solid lineup from top to bottom,” Drick said. “Not only that, we have a lot of underclassmen that are stepping up. We have an all-around effort. It’s phenomenal.”

Montgomery 18, Bucktail 8

Bucktail 000 800–8 6 6

Montgomery 151 623–18 12 4

Gage Sutliff, John Francis (4), Paul Risley (5), Cameron Sockman (6) and Zach Pick, Sutliff (4). Trevor Miller, Hunter Budman (4), Steve Prince (5) and Vaughan Ault. W: Budman, (1-0). L: Francis, (0-1).

Top Bucktail hitters: Devin Serafini 2-3, 2 RBIs, 2 runs; Francis 1-2, 2 runs; Tanner Riggle 1-2, 2 RBI, run. Top Montgomery hitters: Miller 2-3, 3B, 3 RBIs; Hayden Ross 3-4, 3B, RBI, 2 runs; Brayden Strouse 2-4, 3B, 2 RBIs, 5 runs; Budman 1-3, 3 runs; Gage Yohn 1-4, 3B, 3 RBIs, 3 runs; Ault 2-3, RBI; Tyler Shadle 1-3, RBI, run.

Records: Montgomery 2-0, 2-0 Mid-Penn. Bucktail 0-2, 0-2.

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