SILVER CREEK — Stephen Romanik hit an sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth as the Silver Creek Black Knights defeated the Brocton Bulldogs 4-3 in a non-league high school baseball battle on Monday night, handing the Bulldogs their first loss of the season.

The big hit of the game came in the first inning. Romanik led off the inning with a double. Sam Mullen followed with a two run home run that went just inside the left field foul pole. The ball cleared the fence by 15 feet and destroyed a windshield on a parked car.

“Sam has been a solid three hitter for the third year now,” said Silver Creek coach Mike Janisch. “We depend on him and he is consistent by coming through. This is the second home run that Sam has hit this year as he also had a home run in Southwestern.”

Brocton would tie the game with two runs in the fourth. Charlie Rexford led off with a single, followed by Derrick Burns who received a free pass. After Caleb Chelton’s sacrifice moved up both runners, Nate SanGeorge hit a sacrifice fly. Burns would later score on a wild pitch.

The Bulldogs (11-1, 9-0) would add an unearned run in the fifth. Riley Rivera reached on an error and advanced to third when Ronald Brown also got on base from an error. Rexford came through with an RBI groundout.

“One area that we can learn from is how to shorten up our at bats,” said Brocton coach Ray Rosas. “There were times that we had runs that should have been scored and we couldn’t do those small things correctly with tough pitchers to get those base runners around. There were also multiple times that we swung early in the pitch count at bad pitches when we were ahead.”

The Knights (9-7, 6-6) scored a run in the bottom of the sixth despite great defense from Brocton. Spencer Harford singled to left field, but Brocton’s Burns threw out a runner trying to score. Luke Zbytek was able to bring Harford in with a single just before the tag was applied.

Silver Creek had a rally in the bottom of the seventh where the bases were loaded with one out. However, Hunter Rizzo got out of the jam with a pop up and a groundout.

“Both teams threw great pitchers today,” said Janisch. “Brocton has a nice pitching staff and they made us earn everything.”

Harford singled to start off the home half of the eighth and advanced 90 feet from a wild pitch. Pinch hitter Jeremy Wilcox bunted Harford over to third, but ended up getting a hit when nobody covered first to put runners on the corners. “We made some great defensive plays today,” said Rosas. “Unfortunately, we made a big mistake and the bunt put us all out of position so we need to learn where to be in these situations.”

Pulver would then walk to load the bases before Romanik hit a deep fly ball to the left field fence to score Romanik.

“We hung in tough in a non-league game,” said Rosas. “We scheduled this game to prepare us for the playoffs. This game will help us moving forward.”

Harford received the win for Silver Creek, pitching 3.2 scoreless innings, surrendering only one hit. Tom Galfo started and gave up two earned runs from one hit in 4.1 innings of work while striking out five.

Rizzo gave a great effort on the mound for the Bulldogs in defeat. Brown also pitched three innings prior to Rizzo. “My normal pitchers pitched today,” Rosas added. “We finish our league schedule tomorrow so our goal was to have them all available.”

Romanik, Mullen, and Harford each had a multiple hit game for the Black Knights. Rexford and Rivera had the only two hits for the Bulldogs, both singles.

“This is a good sectional tune up for teams that have high aspirations on making a deep run,” said Janisch. “The better competition helps prepare us for what will come and gives us more repetition against quality players.”

Brocton finishes its league schedule today at Clymer while Silver Creek visits Cassadaga Valley