Baseball Recap: Cleveland Heights Takes a Loss

Cleveland Heights extended their losing streak to five on Tuesday, dropping their season record down to 2-15 in the process. They were two runs away from ending the streak, but they lost a 7-5 heartbreaker at the hands of the Mentor Cardinals. Unfortunately, that's the second time they've come up short against the Cardinals this season, as they also lost their prior matchup 11-2 back in April.

As for Mentor, they pushed their record up to 18-5 with the win, which was their fourth straight on the road. Those road victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 2.5 runs on average over those games.

For Mentor's part, Carmello Stropko led a balanced Cardinals bullpen and pitched two innings while giving up no earned runs or hits. The dominant performance also gave Stropko a new career-high in strikeouts (four).

At the plate, Austin Vanhuss was excellent, going 2-for-4 with three stolen bases and one RBI. With that strong performance, he is now averaging an impressive 1 stolen bases per game. Tyson Cendrowski was another key player, getting on base in three of his four plate appearances with one stolen base, one run, and one RBI.

Cleveland Heights and Mentor are set to take part in some playoff action in their next matches. The Tigers will head out to challenge Medina at 5:00 p.m. on the 28th. As for Mentor, they will take on North Ridgeville at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday. The two teams have allowed few runs on average (the Cardinals 3.4, the Rangers 2.1) so any runs scored will be well earned.