Baseball Recap: Tuscarawas Valley Takes a Loss

Tuscarawas Valley extended their losing streak to four on Thursday, dropping their season record down to 8-11 in the process. They fell 9-6 to the Fairless Falcons. The Trojans were given a dose of their own medicine in this game as the Falcons apparently hadn't forgotten their loss the last time these teams played back in May of 2017.

As for Fairless, they are on a roll lately: they've won six of their last eight matches. That's provided a nice bump to their 12-5 record this season. The victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 3.4 runs on average over those games.

For Fairless' part, Tyler Gaal and Hunter Dean did most of the damage at the plate: Gaal got on base in three of his five plate appearances with two RBI and one run, while Dean got on base in three of his four plate appearances with two stolen bases, one run, and one RBI. Those two stolen bases gave Dean a new career-high. The team also got some help courtesy of Mike Ritterbeck, who got on base in three of his five plate appearances with two runs.

Tuscarawas Valley and Fairless could both be facing uphill battles in their next games considering their disadvantage in the MaxPreps Ohio Rankings. The Trojans (ranked 292nd) will meet Carrollton (ranked 85th) at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday. Meanwhile, Fairless will challenge McKinley at 6:00 p.m. on Friday with a big rank disadvantage (313 vs. 109).