Chambersburg baseball hitting woes continue in loss to CV

The Chambersburg baseball team has been in a hitting funk pretty much all season.

The Trojans had scored 10 runs in their first eight games, and in the six defeats, they'd managed only three runs total.

They were hoping to turn that around Thursday afternoon at Greene Township Park when they faced the No. 3 starter for Cumberland Valley, Ryan Rudrow.

Instead, Rudrow dominated.

He retired the first 19 batters he faced before running into trouble in the bottom of the seventh inning, but CV escaped with a 3-2 Mid Penn Commonwealth Division victory. Chambersburg left the bases loaded.

"We're having trouble putting the barrel of the bat on the ball," Trojan coach Scott Folmar said. "The seven strikeouts we had today was the most we've had yet, so we've been putting balls in play, but just not hitting that many of them hard. We haven't even been hitting fastballs."

Rudrow tamed Chambersburg (2-7, 1-5 MPC) with a curveball that they couldn't touch and he consistently threw strikes.

"The curve was pretty good today," Rudrow said. "I wanted to use my slider and changeup, but my catcher (Conner Landry) said there wasn't any reason to. I figured it out as I went along that they weren't able to hit the breaking ball."

Trojan second baseman Austin Kopp said, "His curve threw us off. We're not a good curve-hitting team, although we've worked on it a lot in practice. We just didn't adjust to it today."

Through the first six innings, the only batter to come close to a hit was Max Armstrong, but his liner to right-center was tracked down by Eagle centerfielder Adam Overcash with a diving catch.

Folmar said, "We just have to get better at-bats. We did in the seventh, and gave ourselves a chance, but we can't wait that long."

Working on a perfect game, Rudrow got the first out in the seventh, but then a hard-hit grounder by Kaden Hoover was fumbled at second base for an error. On Rudrow's first pitch of the game from the stretch, Armstrong lined a clean single to left-center to halt the no-hit bid.

After an out, another error scored a run. Kopp then laid down a bunt single to bring the second run home, and with an errant throw, runners were left on second and third. Reliever Hunter Maguire walked Kevin Carbaugh to load the bases, but then got a called strike three on a 2-2 count to end the game.