Sentinel photo by MIKE GOSS East Juniata's Ryan Greising tags out Juniata's Daylyn Kennedy on an attempted steal of third base.

By Connor Jackson

Sports correspondent

COCOLAMUS — The Juniata baseball team used five unanswered runs to beat East Juniata 5-1 Thursday in a pitchers’ duel.

The game was 1-1 going into the sixth inning, with starters Kelton Bonnell (East Juniata) and Caleb Auker (Juniata) pitching well. In the sixth, the Indians scored a run to go ahead 2-1 and would later score three more in the seventh to win 5-1.

“Kelton Bonnell pitched a whale of a ballgame,” Juniata coach Adam Geedey said. “He is a great pitcher. It was huge that we started to put the ball in play, started to get on, got a little bit more momentum, and were able to finish the game strong.”

East Juniata struck first in the second inning when Ian Druckenmiller hit an RBI single to score Austin Shearer. It remained 1-0 until the fifth inning when Daylyn Kennedy hit an RBI single to tie the game for Juniata.

Kennedy would take the mound in the fifth inning and shut down any thoughts of a comeback for East Juniata. He struck out the side in the fifth and sixth innings and would strike out his seventh batter in a row in the seventh inning before ending the game.

“Caleb Auker and Daylyn Kennedy pitched a fantastic ballgame,” Geedey said. “Defense was fantastic, those two pitchers and our defense kept us in the game and ultimately got us the win.”

East Juniata falls to 0-10 with the loss and Juniata has won back-to-back games and improves to 3-8.

“It’s great, that’s what you want,” Geedey said. “We gotta keep building on it, we gotta keep getting better and just building on each win.”

Juniata will play at Susquenita at 4:30 p.m. Friday while East Juniata will play at Neumann Regional Academy at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.