Andy Close
WARREN, Pa. – Eric Dippold’s bases-loaded single with one out in the bottom of the seventh lifted Warren to a 3-2 win over Erie High in their season opener on Monday.
The win was also the first for head coach Andrew Morrison.
“We’ve been practicing really hard for the last month and it feels good to see them go out there and get rewarded for all that hard work,” Morrison said. “We’ve talked about being resilient, being such a young team, so it was good to see that they could do that already.”
Konner Hoffman reached via an error, advancing all the way to third on the throw, followed by back-to-back intentional walks to Ben Sowa and J.T. Blum to set up the game-winner.
Warren took a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning on a double steal that saw Blum cross home plate and Dippold score on an error.
Kevin Fuentes got Erie on the board with an RBI single in the fifth, and the Royals tied the game in the top of the seventh on a double steal, with Chris Ramos crossing the plate.
Neither starting pitcher factored into the decision, but both were very effective. Warren’s Brady Berdine tossed four scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and two walks, striking out five.
“Brady went from throwing single-digit innings in JV last year to being our guy at the start here,” Morrison said. “To be a sophomore and come out and throw four shutout innings in your first start, that’s pretty impressive.”
For Erie, Jose Quinnones went six innings, allowing just two unearned runs on three hits, walking one and striking out eight.
“He’s throwing 82, 83 in 40-degree, weather, it’s hard,” Morrison said. “He’s (Quinnones) is a good pitcher and he’s going to win some games for them this year. We wanted to be aggressive on the base paths and I think you saw that.”
Owen Blum took the win, while Eli Nicklas suffered the loss.
