Staff photo / Preston Byers Austintown Fitch’s Evan Kessler (17) celebrates a two-run triple with the Falcons’ third-base coach during Tuesday’s win vs. Poland in Austintown.

AUSTINTOWN — Mother Nature cut Austintown Fitch’s season opener Tuesday short, but not before the Falcons surpassed the middle of the fifth inning and earned their first win of the year.

After falling behind in the top of the first, Fitch hung seven runs on Poland in the third inning and, despite a strong response by the Bulldogs, hung on before thunderstorms forced the 7-4 game to be called in favor of the Falcons.

“It was interesting,” Fitch head coach Joe Paris said of the opener. “Our goal coming into the season was to minimize our strikeouts, and we didn’t do a very good job of that tonight. But we did have a great inning, put up a crooked number – I think we put a seven-spot up – and overall, it’s our first outing, it’s our first game, so I’m pleased with the effort.”

The Bulldogs took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning when Joe Zuccaro hit a single that drove in Carmine Tukalo, who had led off the game with a ground-rule double.

Then, Owen McKenzie took over, protecting Poland’s early advantage with three strikeouts in the first inning and three more in the second. The only Fitch runners on base were as a result of an infield error and a leadoff walk.

However, McKenzie ran into trouble in the third as the Falcons order got a second look at the Poland pitcher.

Anthony Camacci got Fitch its first hit with a leadoff double to left-center field. Gavin Loomis then drew a walk, and Reggie Danko successfully laid down a bunt to load the bases, setting up Brady Stovall’s two-run single.

The Falcons added to their lead with a Nicholas Pugliese sacrifice fly before Poland committed an error on a ground ball, which would have ended the inning with only three runs allowed. Instead, Stovall scored on the error, and Evan Kessler followed it up with a two-run triple, pushing Fitch’s lead to five.

After the Bulldogs replaced McKenzie with Tucker Tarajack, Fitch scored its seventh run of the inning on a wild pitch, allowing Kessler to race across home plate.

“He fell out of groove, I guess, a little bit,” Poland coach Rich Murray said of McKenzie’s third inning. “Getting behind batters, you can’t pitch like that.”

Poland did its best to shrink the deficit in the fourth inning, as David Vlosich hit a leadoff single, and McKenzie walked before Grady Pitzulo drove in Vlosich. Gavin Seifert then drew a walk to load the bases and force a pitching change; Fitch inserted Cole Gamertsfelder in place of starter TJ McGagahan.

After the change, Kelly Memo drew a bases-loaded walk, and Tukalo drove in another runner on a sacrifice to make it a 7-4 ballgame.

Both Poland, which swapped out Tarajack for Stephen Kopkash before the bottom of the fourth, and Fitch, which relieved Gamertsfelder for Cooper Jobe during the top of the fifth, managed to get through the half-innings scoreless and keep it at 7-4 entering the bottom of the fifth.

There, the first two Falcon batters were unsuccessful in hitting off of Kopkash, but Loomis successfully legged out an infield single. That’s as far as the game would go, though, as a lightning strike during Danko’s subsequent at-bat called for a mandatory 30-minute delay.

The delay lasted only a few minutes. After a brief conference between the umpires, Paris and Murray, the coaches shook hands and the game concluded. Per Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) rules, a game can be considered completed and a winner declared if the home team is ahead after 4 1/2 innings.

Fitch’s McGagahan earned the win on the mound; he struck out a pair and allowed four hits, four runs and two walks in three innings pitched. In relief, Gamertsfelder recorded one strikeout and allowed no hits and three walks, while Jobe had a perfect inning of work.

“We’re young, so I knew we were going to struggle a little bit at the beginning,” Paris said of his team’s pitching. “But we have to throw strikes. We’re not going to strike out 10, 11 guys a game, but what we have to do is we have to make the guys put the ball in play and we have to play good defense behind them. If we do that, we’ll be good. If not, it could be a long season.”

For Poland, McKenzie picked up the loss after 2 2/3 innings, during which he surrendered four hits, three earned runs and two walks. He had seven strikeouts in the start. Kopkash struck out four and allowed one hit and one walk in 1 2/3 innings, and Tarajack gave up a hit and two walks while striking out another.

In the second leg of a scheduled three-day homestand, Fitch (1-0) is set to host Warren JFK today before playing West Branch on Thursday.

Poland (1-1), meanwhile, is off until April 13, after the Bulldogs’ spring break. They are set to play Northeast 8 Conference rival South Range in a back-to-back upon their return.