Jensen hurls a gem as Danville romps

By Marion Valanoski
For The Daily Item

July 15, 2008 06:38 am

— DANVILLE -- Arm problems limited Matt Jensen's time on the mound this past high school season, and yet the Danville product came through Monday in big fashion to help end a three-game losing streak.
Throwing mostly junk and getting solid defensive play behind him, Jensen tossed a four-hitter in leading Danville past Catawissa 11-3 in Susquehanna Valley Legue play.
"We needed a win tonight and Matt gave us everything he had on the mound," veteran manager Harold Albertson said. "He had problems with location in the early going but was able to keep his pitches down around the knees as the game went on and had their hitters off-balance for most of the night."
Both teams had limited rosters, with the visitors avoiding a forfeit loss when their ninth player arrived with less than one minute left to start the contest.
Danville (11-6) opened the scoring with two runs in the first as Mike Smith and Andrew Shoop both singled before Dan Winnie plated one tally with a sacrifice fly and Kyle Mundy followed with a single to right field. Todd Deroba reached on an error and Zach Levan walked to load the bases, but losing hurler Tim Benner got a popup and strikeout to avoid any further damage.
Catawissa (4-12) saw its deficit balloon to 5-0 in the second when Jensen reached first on an error, and after Smith's sacrifice bunt moved him to second, Shoop came through with an RBI single and Winnie added a ground-rule double to plate another run before Mundy capped the outburst with a single to center.
Smith, who had three singles in the win, drove in the team's sixth run in the third with a single.
Both teams scored once in the fourth, however, Danville took complete control of the undermanned Catawissa unit with three runs in the sixth for a 10-1 advantage. Brett Reichard, Smith and Shoop all contributed RBI singles in the outburst.
"As the game progressed, Matt's junk was getting better and he had better control of his curve," Albertson said. "We also played well in the field by turning over three double plays and had some timely hitting."
Catawissa took advantage of a tiring Jensen in the seventh to score twice with the help of a hit batter, error and run-scoring single by Joey Admire and RBI groundout from Tom Admire.
"Even though we did not have a full lineup, we still had our chances to score and possibly win the game," Catawissa manager Nate Mychak said. "We just couldn't come up with the big hit and hurt ourselves with some errors."
Shoop had four hits for the winners while Reichard pitched in with a double and two singles and Mundy added three singles.

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