By Dan Messerschmidt

BUCYRUS — The weatherman hasn’t done local sports teams many favors so far this spring. But a week’s weather-aided layoff appears to have been a boon to Bucyrus baseball.

The Redmen used a four-run third inning and a complete-game six hitter from pitcher Trevor Ley to hand Galion its first loss of the season, 8-3, in a non-league game at Veterans Memorial Field.

“We’re going to go as our fielding goes because our pitchers are going to throw strikes and they’re going to put the ball in play,” Bucyrus coach Sean Maudsley said. “We fielded the ball very well today.”

Ley struck out three, walked two and hit a batter in going the distance and the Bucyrus (1-1) defense committed only one error. The miscue was Ley’s own, allowing the Tigers to score two runs — one of them unearned — in the first inning.

Galion (3-1) got back-to-back doubles from Mitch Dyer and Aaron Barnhart after the error to plate the two runs. From there, the Tigers were limited to one run on four hits.

“Give Ley a lot of credit, he kept us off balance,” Galion coach Phil Jackson said. “We had terrible approaches at the plate.”

The Redmen got one back in the bottom of the first. Ryan Evans led off with an infield single, went to third on a throwing error and scored on a wild pitch.

The Tigers got their only other run in the third inning. Ryan Utz reached on a one-out single. Ethan Pigg beat out a sacrifice bunt attempt for an infield single and Ley hit Dyer to load the bases. Barnhart’s ground out plated the run, to give Galion a 3-1 lead.

Bucyrus took control in the bottom of the third, scoring four times with the aid of two Tigers’ errors. Dylan Goff knocked in the first run with a sacrifice fly, Lucas Kozinski and Ley singled, and Todd Spurlock drove home two more with a two-out single.

“No excuses, we just made a lot of errors,” Jackson said. “We’ve been able to overcome that in past games because we hit the tar out of the ball.”

From there, Ley seemed to get stronger. The sophomore right-hander faced just 15 batters over the last four innings, surrendering only two hits.

“Trevor is a pitcher. He’s not an overwhelming, 90-mile-per-hour, strikeout guy,” Maudsley said. “He uses his pitches very well — inside, outside, up, down — he mixes them up, makes them beat it into the ground. As long as our fielding holds up, we’ll be OK.”

Kaleb Harsh took the loss for Galion. He went four innings, getting touched for six runs, only four earned, on six hits, with four strikeouts and three walks.

Utz and Pigg led the Tigers’ offense with two hits each. Utz, Dyer and Barnhart doubled.

“Our pitching was not bad,” Jackson said. “We pitched well enough to win the game.”

Kozinski had two hits for the Redmen, driving in one and scoring once. Jaylen Zehner doubled while Evans, Gram Dick, Ben Seibert, Ley, Spurlock and Kael Scott singled. Spurlock had two RBIs and Seibert, Goff, Kozinski and Zehner drove in one each.

“We put the ball in play today,” Maudsley said. “Only five strikeouts when we struck out 14 times last week against the same kind of pitcher.”

“We just need to make the routine plays and we’ll be a good team,” Jackson said. “The last two games we put up 30 runs and then today we just did not hit the ball anything like that.”

“Galion’s a very well-coached team. They might have just had an off night against us,” Maudsley said. “I know they scored 30 against Seneca East last weekend.

“I take this as a big victory for us when we can beat a team the caliber of Galion,” Maudsley added. “I’ll take that any day of the week.”

Galion     201 000 0           3  6  4

Bucyrus   104 120 X          8  9  1

WP: Trevor Ley (3 SO, 2 W)

LP: Kaleb Harsh (4 SO, 3 W)

HR: None

Triples: None

Doubles: (G) Ryan Utz, Mitch Dyer, Aaron Barnhart; (B) Jaylen Zehner.

Multiple hits: (G) Ryan Utz, Ethan Pigg; (B) Lucas Kozinski.

Records: Galion 3-1; Bucyrus 1-1.

Next: River Valley at Galion, Tuesday; Crestline at Bucyrus, Tuesday.

Twitter: @TF_Schmidt

208-530-3035