It was Valley West’s day at the plate in its District 18 11-year old championship elimination game against Jim Thorpe on Friday.

West’s bats got going early and often against Thorpe to the tune of 11 hits and 13 runs to come away with a 13-2 victory in four innings.

With JT entering the finals with an undefeated record in tournament play, West needed to win Friday night’s contest to force a one game winner-take-all match-up for the District 18 title.

The pressure was on West coming into the game as it needed to beat Thorpe on the road at McGarvey’s Field.

“Last time we came down here earlier in the tournament, they surprised us and credit to them, they’re a good baseball team,” said Valley West head coach Gregg Pavlick. “But coming in tonight, we knew it was do-or-die and we knew we had to get it back to our field and the kids came to play.”

Valley West quickly got out to a 7-2 lead after two innings.

Tyler Zola and Austin Roberts each came through with doubles in the first, and Sidari added a single to help get West out to a 2-0 lead.

After JT answered right back, scoring two runs in the bottom of the inning off RBI singles from Dominic Calcano and Lucas Knopf, West once again went to work on offense, scoring five runs off five hits.

Mason Rinker had the big hit of the inning, with a two-run double with Tyler Zola. Logan Billig and Julian Pavlick also added RBIs.

“Our goal was to get up on them early with the situation needing to win tonight. The emphasis was looking for balls that they could drive, and they did a good job waiting for their pitch to hit,” said Pavlick. “We have a smart group here and they can all see the ball very well. It’s just a smart group of kids at the plate and they were aggressive when they saw their pitch.”

On the flip side, JT couldn’t get its offense going, which was mostly due to Rinker’s performance from the mound for West. Rinker’s command kept the Thorpe hitters off balance, as he pitched four strong innings, striking out eight.

“Their pitcher really had his stuff going. Their whole team came to play today,” said Jim Thorpe head coach Mark Domski. “The message is simple for us: We need to come focused tomorrow and be positive and hustle and play smart baseball and let the game play out how it does. But most importantly we have to come in tomorrow focused and positive.”

West added three more runs in the third, and three more runs in the fourth to lead by 11 runs as Rinker kept Thorpe scoreless to enact the 10-run rule.

NEXT UP

… Jim Thorpe and Valley West will now face off with each other today in a one game winner take all at West’s Conygham baseball complex at 1 p.m.

Valley West 253 3 - 13 11 1

Jim Thorpe 200 0 - 2 5 1

Rinker and Roberts; Domski, Calcano (3), Skrimcovsky (4) and Knopf. W - Rinker. L - Domski.