Wise, Coal Grove knock off Portsmouth, 4-2

Published 12:00 am Thursday, May 6, 2004

COAL GROVE - To beat the Portsmouth Trojans, a team's pitcher has to be pretty "Wise."

Randy Wise threw a two-hitter as the Coal Grove Hornets stunned Portsmouth 4-2 Wednesday.

Wise struck out four and walked one before giving way to Tommy Pemberton who retired the final three batters to notch the save.

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"Randy has had some good games. Tonight, he was on again. He has a good-moving fastball that rides in on the hitters and he has a good breaking ball," Hornets coach John Jones said.

Coal Grove banged out 13 hits, with Luke Tackett and Pemberton going 3-4. Aaron Abt was 2-3 while Nick Bazell and Wise were 2-4.

"We hit the ball well again. We had 13 hits and we hit a lot of other balls hard," Jones said.

Portsmouth went up 1-0 in the second inning.

Derek Wales was hit by a pitch and Jon Chandler singled to put runners on the corners. Randy Phipps squeezed home Wales.

But the Hornets came back to score three times in the third inning.

Wise, Tackett and Pemberton singled to load the bases. Bazell singled home a pair. Patrick Roush hit a sacrifice fly to score Pemberton.

The Trojans cut the deficit to 3-2 in the fifth inning.

Chandler walked, stole second, took third on a ground out and scored on Greg Swords' sacrifice fly.

Coal Grove got the run back in the sixth inning with two outs.

Tackett singled and stole second. Pemberton beat out an infield hit with Tackett coming all the way around from second base on the play to score.

Coal Grove, 7-9, hosts River Valley on Monday.

Portsmouth0100100-220

Coal Grove003001x-4131

Jacob Young, Drew Howard (6) and Randy Phipps. Randy Wise, Tommy Pemberton (7) and Nick Bazell. W-Wise (4-K, 1-W, 1-HBP). L-Young (6-K, 0-W). Save-Pemberton (1-K). 2B-Coal Grove: Patrick Roush. Hitting-Portsmouth: Randall Scott 1-3, Jon Chandler 1-2; Coal Grove: Randy Wise 2-4, Luke Tackett 3-4, Tommy Pemberton 3-4, Nick Bazell 2-4, Patrick Roush 1-2, Aaron Abt 2-3.