Wolverines Baseball, Softball Teams Pick Up Victories Thursday, Look Towards WPIAL Playoffs

The Ellwood City Wolverine boys baseball team and girls softball team each picked up victories Thursday afternoon, each have clinched and will next advance to the WPIAL Playoffs.

The baseball team used a strong effort from senior Aaron Lake on the mound in its 3-0 shutout victory over Knoch.

Lake tossed 6.2 innings of shutout baseball, striking out eight while allowing only three hits. Lake also doubled offensively for the Wolverines.

Jordan Keller smacked two doubles and George Bokor added a double among his two-hit effort.

The game was scoreless entering the bottom half of the fifth inning before an RBI-double by Keller opened the scoring in the two run frame for Ellwood City.

The Wolverines (14-3 Overall, 8-2 Section 1-3A) who share the section crown with Mohawk will next await its playoff pairing in the WPIAL Class 3A Playoffs and will be among one of four teams from the section in the playoff picture.  The Class 3A WPIAL Championship Game is scheduled to be held Wednesday, May 27th at 5:00 p.m. at EQT Park (formerly Wild Things Park) in Washington, PA.

ELLWOOD CITY 3 HICKORY 1

The Lady Wolverines picked up a 3-1 victory over Hickory on Thursday afternoon and have settled in to a 4-seed in the WPIAL Softball playoffs.

Amber McQuistion crossed the 500 career strikeout mark as she struck out 10 batters Thursday in her complete game victory. McQuistion allowed only three hits and did not walk a batter.

Offensively, Kiley LeViere accounted for all the offense Ellwood City needed as she hit a 3-run homerun in the top of the first inning to put the Wolverines on the board early.

Rylee Prestopine and McQuistion singled to account for the only other hits against Hickory starter A Jarzeb who was dealt a the loss. Jarzeb struck out 13 batters but was felled by the LeViere homerun.

The Ellwood City girls softball team (9-5 Overall, 7-3 Section 2-3A) will await the winner of the of #5 McGuffey and #12 Hopewell opening round match-up and will expect to play its game on May 18th at a site and time TBA. Section foe Mohawk (14-4 overall, 10-0 Section 2-3A) earned a 2-seed while South Park is the top seed in the Class 3A playoffs.