MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — At this point, the Morgantown High baseball team has seen enough of Bridgeport’s Chris Harbert.
After throwing two scoreless innings on Monday before rain halted play, the Indians’ junior hurler threw four more of them Tuesday, as Bridgeport took the first game in the Region I final, 7-3, at Mylan Park.
The Indians will host the Mohigans at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Bridgeport needing just one more victory to advance to the Class AAA state tournament in Charleston.
If necessary, a third and deciding game would return to Mylan Park on Thursday.
“I told our coaches I wanted the ball,” Harbert said. “I still felt good. I wasn’t tight at all. I wanted to get back out there and finish it.”
Harbert was able to pitch a second consecutive day, because he did not exceed 30 pitches on Monday — “I was at 29,” he said matter-of-factly. — which would have forced him to rest his arm for two days by the state’s pitch-count rule.
“He’s kind of old school in his approach,” Bridgeport head coach Robert Shields said. “He just wants the ball. I’m very proud of him for that.”
The only time the Mohigans got to Harbert was in the fifth.
Trailing, 4-0, MHS scored three runs on doubles from Ryan Fluharty and Quincy Thornton and two ground-ball RBIs from Zach Brennan and Domenic Colosante.
“They got a couple of timely hits and they took advantage of a good situation,” Harbert said.
Other than that, it was all Harbert, who didn’t allow a base runner in either the sixth or seventh innings.
“Yeah, I’ll be thinking about that one inning for a while,” Harbert said. “That’s what sticks out to me, but what’s most important is what happens after a bad inning. That’s just as important.”
Harbert is credited with a two-day complete game. He struck out four and allowed just three hits and a walk in Tuesday’s conclusion.
Reed Bailey took the loss for MHS. He pitched in relief of Thornton, who did go over the state’s limit on Monday and won’t be available on the mound again until Thursday.
Bailey gave up 10 hits and seven runs over four innings, but they came with a note.
“They ended up scoring all of their runs with two outs,” MHS head coach Pat Sherald said. “There were two stories to this game. Harbert coming back out and pitching as well as he did on a second day was one, but we were many times just one strike or one out away from getting out of those innings. We just didn’t close the door.”
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