Zanesville Uses “Small Ball” to Upset Rosecrans

ZANESVILLE, OH – What a day on the diamond as two schools less than three miles apart from one another battled it on Thursday, as one-win Zanesville went up against 6-2 Bishop Rosecrans in baseball.

It was indeed all about the little things for the Blue Devils, Riley Needles got Zanesville on the board in the second inning, as he would reach on a sacrifice bunt that would plate Preston Moorehead on the play. Then in the top of the fifth inning, Rosecrans responded with an RBI from Mikey Burkhart, which ultimately scored an additional run on a throwing error, allowing Burkhart to advance to third on the play. where he would be left stranded to end the inning. At this point the Bishops led three to one, but that story changed in the bottom of the sixth inning.

The Blue Devils pulled out quite the rally, capped off by a bloop from Noah Darnes in the infield and two runs came across to score. Zanesville held on in the top of the seventh, upsetting the Bishops by a score of four to three.

After the game, Zanesville manager Jason Smith gave all the credit in the world to the Bishops.

“(Hayden) Perdue threw a heck of a game, hats off to him. He came in and he really did a great job of shutting us down and making it hard for us, get anything going offensively.”

Smith was impressed by his team’s intangibles to get back in the game and pull out the victory.

“I thought our guys did a good job of hanging in there, didn’t look good for a couple innings, but they bought in together, they believed in one another.”

Zanesville has a quick turnaround, hosting Watkins on Friday at 5 pm. Rosecrans travels to Fisher Catholic tomorrow, with an expected first pitch of 5:15 pm.