BROOKVILLE, Pa. (EYT) – Liam Huwar came two outs away from throwing a complete game shutout, and Clarion beat DuBois, 7-2, in the winner’s bracket finals of the Little League Section 1 10-and-under Tournament Wednesday night at Zufall Field in Brookville.
(Photo of Clarion’s Liam Huwar)
Huwar’s final line was 5 ⅓ innings pitched, two runs allowed, one of them earned, on three hits and one walk while striking out six. At one point from the bottom of the first until the top of the sixth, he retired 13 of 14 batters he faced.
“He followed our strategy to a T,” Clarion manager and Liam’s dad Luke Huwar said. “We don’t want to give up too many free passes. We want to make them earn it. He almost got through a complete game on 75 pitches. That is not something you see too often.
“We needed everything he gave us with the way DuBois played. They really put us to the test like we haven’t been tested.”
A Clarion team that has basically been on cruise control offensively with multiple mercy-rule victories, found itself struggling against a bevy of DuBois pitches managing just seven hits on the night with just five of them leaving the infield and only one extra-base hits.
“The DuBois pitchers were really keeping us off-balance,” Luke Huwar said. “They were throwing hard, and we couldn’t string together the hits the way we normally are.”
While Clarion was having trouble stringing hits together, it still found ways to score runs scoring twice on wild pitches, stealing home once as part of a double steal and scoring two other runs on errors. Two runs did come home on back-to-back RBI singles by Alex Love and Eli Nellis in a three-run fourth inning that expanded Clarion’s lead to 6-0 at the time.
“We need to be able to score runs in any way we can,” Luke Huwar said. “When you get to these tough games every run, every position on base is important. I thought the kids were really aware on the base paths. We picked up extra bases whenever we could.
“Manufacturing runs is what we needed tonight.”
Just like it did in Clarion’s win over Oil City in the District 25 title game last week, the bottom of Clarion’s lineup played a key role with the No. 8 and No. 9 spots in the order producing three runs and an RBI including two runs scored and an RBI by Love out of the No. 9 spot.
“The bottom of our order came through,” Luke Huwar said. “They were clutch tonight. We were kind of struggling in the middle of the order more than we have in a long time. Those (bottom of the order) guys stepped up. They were the guys manufacturing runs, knocking in runs and setting up the top of our lineup. I told the kids after the game that this was 100 percent a team win. It wasn’t any single person going out there and winning the game for us. It was a team win.”
The victory puts Clarion in a similar spot as last year needing just one win to advance to the state tournament. A year ago, that win eluded the Clarion nine, but with many of the players back Luke Huwar believes his team can build on what it learned in 2018.
“That is the exact conversation we just had with the team,” Luke Huwar said. “It’s Yogi Berra’s De Ju Vue all over again as Coach (Patrick) Craig said. I think we learned a lesson there. We have to come prepared, and we have to expect to be in another dog fight. We did win the king seat and somebody has to play tomorrow and come back and beat us twice Friday. But we aren’t going to take anything for granted. I think the experience the kids picked up last year will serve us well on Friday.”
Clarion will have Thursday off before having two chances to win the Section Friday against the winner of Thursday’s loser’s bracket final between DuBois and Northwest, a 14-5 winner over LeBoeuf in the loser’s bracket semifinals Wednesday.
Thursday’s loser’s bracket final is set for 6 p.m. in Brookville. The first championship game will be played at 5 p.m. Friday in Brookville, and if Clarion would lose that game, a winner-take-all title game would be played immediately following the first game at approximately 7 p.m.
The state tournament will take place July 24-30 at the Wellsboro Little League.
HOW THEY SCORED
Top of the First Inning
Clarion loaded the bases with no outs against DuBois starter Seth Wilmoth, but Wilmoth struck out two batters before uncorking a wild pitch that gave Clarion a 1-0 lead.
Top of the Third Inning
Five walks helped Clarion scored two runs with Nellis stealing home plate on a double steal with Dylan Smail, and Smail coming home on a wild pitch to put Clarion ahead 3-0.
Top of the Fourth Inning
Billy Kahle started a three-run rally for Clarion by reaching second on an error before scoring on a base hit to center by Love. Love moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on a base hit to center by Nellis, who went to second on the throw to the plate. Nellis then moved to third on a passed ball and scored when the DuBois catcher threw wildly to third to make it 6-0 Clarion.
Top of the Fifth Inning
A two-out walk to Love proved costly for DuBois when Nellis reached on a throwing error that allowed Love to score all the way from first and Nellis to go to third making it 7-0 Clarion.
Bottom of the Sixth
A leadoff error allowed Ryan Woodel to reach first, and Wes Clyde followed with an infield single before a wild pitch moves both runners up one base. Then, with one out, Wilmoth greeted reliever Parker Miller with a two-run triple to right-center to cut Clarion’s lead to 7-2 before Miller struck out back-to-back batters to secure the win.
CLARION 7, DUBOIS 2
Score by Innings
Clarion 102 310 – 7
DuBois 000 002 – 2
CLARION – 7
Eli Nellis 2b/c 3321, Paul Craig 1b/cf 3010, Dylan Smail ss 2100, Parker Miller c/1b/p 3010, Ethan Rex cf/2b 3020, Liam Huwar p/cf 3000, Carter Hindman 3b 2000, Casey Kemmer lf 1000, Billy Kahle ph/lf 2100, Alex Lover rf 2211. Totals 24-7-7-2.
DUBOIS – 2
Wes Clyde ss/p/2b 2110, Keegan Gregory 2b/3b 2000, Jackson McCall ph 1000, Seth Wilmoth p/ss 3022, Hunter Ho 3b/c/p/rf 3000, Isaac Dennison c/3b/p 3000, Adam Drahushak 1b 2000, Brody Knouse lf 1000, Nathan Witherite lf 1000, Bryson Kail cf 1000, Easton Harris cf 1000, Jack Stattler rf 1010, Ryan Woodel rf/p 1100. Totals 22-2-4-2.
LOB: Clarion 9. DuBois 3. Errors: Clarion 1. DuBois 4. 2B: Rex. 3B: Wilmoth. SAC: Craig. SB: Nellis, Smail, Rex, Huwar. CS: Hindman, Clyde.
PITCHING
Clarion
Liam Huwar 5.1 IP, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 H, 1 BB, 6 K
Parker Miller 0.2 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 H, 0 BB, 2 K
TOTALS: 6 IP, 2 R, 1 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 8 K
DuBois
Seth Wilmoth 2.2 IP, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 H, 6 BB, 6 K
Wes Clyde 1 IP, 3 R, 1 ER, 2 H, 0 BB, 0 K
Isaac Dennison 1 IP, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 H, 1 BB, 1 K
Hunter Ho 0.2 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 2 K
Ryan Woodel 0.2 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 H, 0 BB, 0 K
TOTALS 6 IP, 7 R, 4 ER, 7 H, 7 BB, 9 K
Winning pitcher: Liam Huwar
Losing pitcher: Seth Wilmoth
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