LOCAL SPORTS: West Shamokin Arctic Wolves Fall to New Bethlehem

by Jake DeLuca

The heat of competition was almost as hot as the temperature outside last night at Ding Field in Rural Valley as the West Shamokin Arctic Wolves took on the New Bethlehem Red team in an 11/12 year old little league showdown.

Keaton McClafferty was the starting pitcher for the Wolves, and he had a bit of a shaky start. McClafferty allowed three runs in the first inning before finding his groove and allowing only one run over the next two innings.

The Arctic Wolves were able to stay in the game thanks to Ryan Buckley and his two RBI single in the bottom of the first to make the score 3-2 heading into the second inning.

Buckley also came in to relieve Keaton McClafferty of his pitching duties in the third inning.

The game went back and forth with the lead changing multiple times, until the fifth inning where New Bethlehem was able to go on a nice offensive run. Heading into the top of the fifth inning the score was tied at 5-5, but New Bethlehem strung together some hits and jumped out to a 9-5. It is innings like these that have been the thorn in the side of the Wolves all season.

“We usually have one sporadic inning where the youth of the team comes out. We’ve been in games all year, but sometimes we just have one inning where it goes wrong,“ Arctic Wolves manager, Anthony Buffone said.
After the big inning from New Bethlehem, the Arctic Wolves looked like they had a chance to make a comeback in the sixth and potentially final inning of the game. The Arctic Wolves were able to get bases loaded in the inning, but were not able to capitalize and lost to New Bethlehem by a final score of 9-5.

The Arctic Wolves are a young team; most of the players are eleven years old. West Shamokin only has one game left in the season, so the coaching staff had an extended team meeting after the game lead by manager Anthony Buffone.

“We talked about what a great year we had and how these kids have stepped up and rose above our expectations. Pretty much just letting the players know that we’re proud of them. We have a young team, a lot of eleven year olds and they definitely stepped up and played good 12 year olds,” Buffone said.

Buffone was confident that his kids will be back next season and better than ever.

“We’re young, but next year is going to be our year and we’re going to be back and stronger than ever.”

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.