The last game of the Greentree tournament for Greenfield was similar to the first one--same opponent, same pressure to make up an early deficit. This time, though, the early hole was too deep for a comeback, and Greenfield lost 9-4. 

Brighton Heights jumped on the board early again, hitting grounders and line drives into the gaps to build a first-inning 4-0 lead. They added another four runs in the third inning to take a commanding lead. 

Brady Sulinski got around the bases in the second inning for Greenfield on some nifty base running and two errors by Brighton Heights. 

Michael Twigg also provided a bright spot for Greenfield in the fourth inning with a beautiful solo home run over the left field fence. 

Defensively, there were some notable plays in relays from the outfield. Chasing down a hard shot to left field, Ethan Heidel-Roberts hit his cut-off man, Bryan McCann, who fired the ball to third base. Samson Hill put down the tag to get the speedy runner out by only a hair. 

There was also a relay from Luther Harper in right field to Sulinski to McCann for a tagged out. 

The top of Greenfield's lineup struggled to put hits together all evening, and it wasn't until the top of the sixth that the boys in Green put together some back to back base hits, with Brandon Twigg reaching, then Michael Twigg on a stand-up double to left center, then Brady Sulinski. Two runs came across eventually, but it was too little, too late to mount another comeback.

Brandon Twigg pitched the first three innings, and Michael Twigg finished out the game. With his home run and several K's pitched in his two innings, Michael Twigg was named his team's MVP. 

Congratulations to Brighton Heights for a game well played, and to Greenfield on taking 2nd. The action continues for the 12s at Elliott Thursday night at 8 p.m. 

The Greenfield 10s put in a dominating performance after a 2-hour rain delay, beating Upper St. Clair 9-0 for the Elliott Tournament Championship. 

Kaeden Geraci, Garrett White, and Logan Carter split the shutout with two innings apiece. Logan Carter was named MVP. 

The Greenfield 12s had to roll out of bed early for a 9 a.m. Sunday elimination game, winning their way into an afternoon game, and then into Monday night's championship game. 

The early game against CIT saw Greenfield take an early lead, and add to it most every inning. Brandon Twigg and Matt Mock pitched two innings apiece, with Samson Hill and Jordan Osborne finishing out the game. 

The score was 9-1 going into the last inning. Greenfield added 5 in the top of the sixth, but CIT had the bottom to attempt a comeback. Osborne made sure they did not. 

The Greenfield 12s came back into action at 1 p.m. against South Hills (The Wild Things).

Greenfield had played The Wild Things in the Riverside Tournament and knew what the team could do, so they jumped out on them early and kept Bryan McCann on the mound for five innings. 

The first inning, the boys in green opportunistically put together a number of hits, walks, and steals. Jordan Osborne started off with a single to right field, and the hits kept coming, all the way through the lineup and back to the top. At the end of that inning, Greenfield was up 6-0. 

McCann kept the batters off-balance, and the right side of the defense saw some good action since most of the South Hills hitters were swinging late on pitches. Brady Sulinski made several good stops at second, and the right and center fielders kept any baserunners honest by getting balls in quickly. 

Both Sulinski and Ethan Heidel-Roberts had good days at the plate, and Jack Heider, as a call-up, helped the cause with a single and a ground-out that moved a runner to third. Sulinski also added the only other run for Greenfield by stealing second, then third on a bad throw, then home on a second error. 

The final score was 7-2. The 12s will now face Brighton Heights in the championship, giving them another chance at the team that slipped away from them in extra innings last Thursday. 

The championship game will be at 8 p.m. at the Greentree complex, Hemlock field. 

The Greenfield team of 11s and 12s lost a close contest to Brawn Jeffrey and then were overrun by 9th Ward, keeping them from advancing in the Morningside tournament. 

The tournament framework had to be switched to double elimination to deal with several games being rained out over the weekend.

Against Brawn Jeffrey, the Greenfielders kept it close through 5 innings of play, heading into the 6th trailing 4-3. Will Szustak put in two innings, giving up only one run, and Tommy Zymanski also took the mound. 

In the field, Marcus Waller had several good plays at shortstop. 

Unfortunately, Greenfield was not able to even things up in the last inning, giving up a few more runs to make the final tally 8-3. 

The game against 9th Ward was a case of one team bringing its "A" game while the other team loses focus. Saturday, 9th Ward was the one bringing their best game, which included hot pitching and a grand slam, ending the game early, 15-2. 

This younger Greenfield team is gaining valuable experience by playing in 12U Tournaments, even though the road has been rough. 

In Saturday action at the Greentree Tournament, the 12s put in a workmanlike performance, piling up runs every inning to stop the game after 4, 13-1. 

Brandon Twigg pitched two scoreless innings, then Matt Mock closed. The defense played strong behind their pitchers, stopping several hot grounders in the infield. Bryan McCann had two nice plays at short, diving to his left to knock down two grounders and popping up to throw out the runners at first. 

McCann also hit two two-run homeruns, one to right center and one to center. He won game MVP honors. 

The boys in green got 3 runs in the first, 2 in the second, 4 in the third, and 4 in the fourth. The last two, completing the 12-run rule, came on a walk-off single by Jordan Osborne.

Greentree did get several nice hits, one that fell onto the chalk-line in right field to stay fair, but they weren't able to put enough of them together to extend the game. 

Missing Luther Harper with an ankle injury and Isaac Koerber, Greenfield called up Garrett White from the 10s. White had a quiet day in left field, but he drove in several runs with an unfieldable ball up the left field line. 

The 12s second game Saturday was rained out, but rescheduled for Sunday morning at 9. If they win, they will play again at 1:00 p.m. Sunday. 

The Greenfield 12s lost a heartbreaker in extra innings to Brighton Heights, July 6, in their first Greentree Tournament action.

The boys in green got a slow start, giving up four runs in the first inning and not getting on the board till the fourth. By the fourth inning, Brighton Heights was up 5-0. 

In the bottom of the fourth with two people on base, though, Samson Hill hit a shot in the gap between center and right to bring two runs in. Then, in the fifth inning, the Brighton Heights pitching started to falter.

With a combination of walks and hits, Greenfield moved three more runs across the plate to tie the game, 5-5. A scoreless sixth inning set up the drama of the seventh. 

Bryan McCann had been shutting down the Brighton Heights bats from the third inning on, giving up only a solo home run in the third. In the seventh, though, a Brighton Heights player hit a hot grounder down the third base line, and then another batter hit to left field, bringing in two runs. 

Facing a two run deficit in the bottom of the seventh, two Greenfield batters went down, one by strikeout and one by ground-out. McCann came up to the plate and hit a high pop up that got him to first when Brighton Heights was not able to field it. Hill then hit a shot off the center field fence that was three feet short of a dinger, getting him to third. 

The score was now 7-6 with the tying run at third. On a 3-2 count, Matt Mock made contact, hitting a tricky chopper to the second baseman. The second baseman bobbled the ball and it rolled away, but the shortstop barehanded it and whipped it sidearm toward first. Mock, with the extra time, got his foot on first before the ball got there. Unfortunately, the field ump saw it differently, turning a wild celebration by the Greenfield crowd into unbelief and boos. 

The Brighton Heights team played well in the field and in the batters box, and in the post-game handshakes, they gave their condolences for the call. Congratulations to them for a game well played. Greenfield hopes to have another chance at them later in the tournament. 

Good job Greenfield for climbing back into the game twice and swinging till the end. 

After two dominating performances, the Greenfield 7s ran into a challenge in the West Mifflin tournament, losing a close game to Thomas Jefferson, 18-17.

After battling back and forth, Greenfield was up in the bottom of the sixth, 17-16, but Thomas Jefferson was up at the plate. First there was a single, then a triple to tie the game.

With the winning run on third base, the infield moved in to make a play at home. Unfortunately for Greenfield, the next hitter popped one over the infielders' heads to bring the run in and win the game. 

Great job hitting by both teams, with an exciting finish!
​

The Greenfield 10s racked up 15 runs on Tuesday at the Riverview Tournament, beating Natrona Heights 15-10 in their first action of the tournament. 

It was the top of the order for Greenfield that churned out the runs, and the lead swung back and forth. First, Greenfield scored five in the first inning. Then Natrona Heights came back and took the lead in the third inning, 6-5.

Greenfield didn't stay down for long, though. The boys in green put up another bunch of runs to take back the lead, but, again, Natrona Heights wouldn't go away. They cut Greenfield's lead by the end of the fifth, making the score 11-9. 

In the top of the sixth, Greenfield batted itself to a little cushion, but no one could rest easy with the way Natrona Heights could score runs.

After one more run came across, with more people on base, Coach White turned to Logan Carter to close up the shop. Three strikeouts later, the Greenfield fans celebrated their first victory of the tournament season. 

​Way to battle, Greenfield 10s!

The Greenfield 7s put up a dominating performance in the West Mifflin Tournament on July 27, beating host team West Mifflin 12-0.

​ 

The 12s came into Sunday's tournament playoffs on a roll, but they could see on the tournament board that there was, in the other bracket, another gorilla in the jungle. That was the Freeport team, which had been steamrolling everyone in their path. 

First up for Greenfield, though, was Penn Hills. 

Brandon Twigg pitched three solid innings, holding Penn Hills to one run, while the Greenfield bats churned out enough base hits to pile up the runs. In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Greenfield bats added the last couple of runs to stop the game early by 10-run-rule. 

The championship game against Freeport got started an hour later, and the first three innings looked bleak for the boys from Greenfield.

In the first three innings, the Greenfield hitters were popping out, grounding out, or striking out. Three batters up, and three down...for three innings. On the other side of those innings, Freeport was putting the ball in play just outside the reach of Greenfield gloves, including one home run, a couple of shots to right center field, and several hard hits that rode the chalk down the left field line. 

By the beginning of the fourth inning, the score was Freeport 7, Greenfield 0, and it was time for Greenfield's tenth batter, Isaac Koerber, to get up to the plate for the first time. 

With two strikes on him, Koerber found a seam in the Freeport defense with a sizzling grounder for Greenfield's first base hit of the game. He stole second, then was moved to third by Jordan Osborne's ground-out. He then stole home, dancing his way around the Freeport player with the ball. 

That got the Greenfield crowd into the game. Then, on a 2-2 count, Samson Hill blasted a solo home run into the creek behind the center field fence and danced around the diamond. 

In the first three innings, Matthew Mock struck out several batters and got several to hit weak grounders, some of which he fielded himself. Bryan McCann came in for the fourth and fifth innings to deny Freeport any additional runs.

In the top of the fifth, the Greenfield rally continued in a big way. Brandon Twigg started off with a solo home run to cut Freeport's lead to 7-3. An unbroken string of hits followed, as everyone in the line up got up to the plate that inning. This string included a shot by Luther Harper down the right field line that hit the fence only a few inches short of a home run. When the dust settled, Greenfield was on top 11-7. 

Greenfield added another run in the top of the sixth. In the bottom of the sixth, Brady Sulinski caught an infield pop up for the first out, then closer Samson Hill struck out the last two batters to complete the win. 

Coach Jim Gregg told the boys that this was one of the most impressive comebacks he has seen in tournament play. Thanks go out to all the parents and fans who spurred on the rally with their encouragement, and congratulations to the Greenfield 12s, Riverside Tournament Champions!