JOHNSTOWN — The Cleveland Chardon Blizzard’s scoring rampage is raging on.

Cleveland posted six runs in the first and scored in every inning except for the third during a 12-1 win in seven innings over the Livonia Michigan Rams on Wednesday afternoon at Greater Johnstown Middle School’s Fichtner Field.

The Blizzard (3-0 in the 68th AAABA Tournament) move on to face New Brunswick in the winner’s bracket final today. So far, Cleveland has scored 49 runs in three games during the tournament, averaging 16.3 runs per contest.

“The game’s fun when you hit the baseball,” Cleveland manager Dan Navatsyk said. “What I told them after the game was: ‘Our problem right now is to not think that we’re better than we are.’ It’s a hard game, it’s a game of failure and tomorrow we could get shut down. We’re swinging the bats right now better than we have all summer.”

Pitcher Corey Waite kept the Rams’ bats in check allowing just an unearned run in the third and six hits against a walk and seven strikeouts. A first-inning grand slam by Kevin Bernay put Livonia (2-1) in a quick 6-0 hole with two outs in the first.

After the six-run first, Cleveland kept the pressure on Livonia pitchers Josh Payzant (four innings) and Keith Paslean (three innings) adding two runs in the second and single runs from the fourth inning on.

“You dig yourself in a hole ... Our first pitcher just didn’t have it (Wednesday),” Livonia manager Rick Berryman said. “They had some key hits and we started out in a hole that we couldn’t dig out of. That sums up the game. They’ve got confidence and (Waite) throws well and we just couldn’t hit our way out of it. I don’t think we’re a bad team, we just had a couple bad innings from our pitcher.” 

That Cleveland rally in the first started on Jack LaMarca’s one-out double to right-center. A Dan Belliveau single chased in LaMarca with Andrew Frey’s single coming a batter later. After Belliveau was cut down at third on a fielder’s-choice grounder from Patrick Ammar, Adam Urbania reached on an error to load the bases before a wild pitch moved in Frey. Giancarlo Saia, who was at the plate as Payzant uncorked the wild pitch, worked a walk to load the bases for Bernay, who sent a Payzant offering over the fence in left.

“That’s our fourth grand slam, it’s pure coaching,” Navatsyk joked. “I tell them to get the bases loaded and hit it over the fence and they obey.”

Navatsyk then added, “When you get up on teams, it puts pressure on them right away and their pitcher didn’t have his best stuff but I thought he competed really, really hard.”

The Blizzard posted two more runs in the second as Urbania grounded into a fielder’s choice at shortstop to score Belliveau. An errant throw by Justin Sherman on the double-play try allowed Frey to score on the same play.

Livonia committed three errors, all of which led or contributed to Cleveland runs.

“We had a couple miscues, some possible double plays that let in a couple of runs,” Berryman said. “When you get a big score differential; energy up, energy down.  We just couldn’t do anything to get our energy up.” 

Livonia grabbed its run in the third as Trent Drumheller singled, moved to third on a hit-and-run base hit by Brandon Katta before scoring when Jim Jaska’s throw to second as Katta stole the bag trickled into the outfield.

After that error by Phil Navatsyk at second, Cleveland turned in a pair of double plays and ended the game on a running catch in deep center by LaMarca.

Ammar grounded out to second in the fifth to score LaMarca starting Cleveland’s run of single scores through the remainder of the game. Saia singled and scored on Phil Navatsyk’s base hit to right-center in the fifth. Belliveau, who reached on a fielder’s choice, came in on Ammar’s hit-and-run double to right-center. Saia scored the Blizzard’s final run when Phil Navatsyk beat out a double-play relay after grounding to short.