The stakes were high at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford on Monday evening.
All four teams that took the diamond had at least one loss in the double elimination Little League 9-11 State Tournament, meaning it was win or go home.
Lionville defeated Upper Providence 10-0 in the early game, pushing across 14 hits while getting an equally solid performance on the mound.
Lionville, located about 40 minutes outside of Philadelphia, broke the scoreless tie with a two-run third inning and added at least one run over the game’s final four innings.
Jake Scott had three RBI, including a two-run double as part of a four-run fourth for Lionville.
Lionville head coach Teddy Frain wasn’t all that surprised with the offensive outburst from his team that now has 30 runs over the first three games of this tournament.
“Our team is hitting the ball very well right now,” he said after the game. “This has carried over from districts and we are just cranking hits. We’ve had a lot of good two-out hits and are seeing the ball well.”
Upper Providence allowed five consecutive hits in that fourth, but also struggled to help out their pitchers. Upper Providence committed five errors in the game, while Lionville had just one. In fact, Lionville fielders made several superb plays in the field that prevented any rally attempts in the final innings.
“A lot of hard balls hit to the infield and our shortstop made great plays,” Frain said. “Everybody was making plays. Pitching was good, defense was tight and we hit the ball well. You put all three of those together and a lot of times you’re going to get a ‘W’.”
Brian Fuchs and Ryan Clark also had multi-RBI games for Lionville.
After losing its first game of the tournament, Lionville has rattled off consecutive victories in dominant fashion. While the youngsters will certainly let Monday’s win soak in for a bit, they’ll be right back at UPB this afternoon — once again facing the threat of being eliminated.
“We’re pretty much used to this,” Frain said. “We had to win six in a row to take districts and we had to win three in a row to take sectionals. When we lost our first game, these kids were great. They didn’t hang their heads and forgot about it 10 minutes after the first game and came ready to play. That’s the sign of a resilient team and we have a great bunch of kids.”
Lionville’s opponent in today’s 5 p.m. game will be West Point, which dispatched Keystone 12-2 in Monday’s other contest.
The two teams traded runs in a back-and-forth start to the game, with West Point holding onto a 4-2 lead entering the fourth inning.
As a steady rain began to fall in that inning, West Point’s bats provided the thunder. They scored six runs in the inning (two wild pitches, an RBI single, a sacrifice fly and two groundouts) to take a 10-2 lead.
Dylan Firmstone put the finishing touches on the game with a two-run double in the fifth inning to end the contest via the 10-run rule.
“Great team effort,” West Point head coach Eric Butler said. “We had (11) hits tonight and that was top-to-bottom. We brought in three subs and they all hit the ball. That six-run rally in the fourth all started with the substitutions off the bench.”
Not lost in the offensive output was the effort of starting West Point pitcher Colin Polecko. After allowing four consecutive baserunners and two runs in the second inning, Polecko pitched nearly flawless baseball to close the game out for his team.
“He’s very consistent, and he just kept his composure,” Butler said about his pitcher. “He threw a 78-pitch complete game on the mound and is able to keep them off balance. He gave us the chance to win.”
Polecko also added three hits and an RBI at the plate.
After a 7-1 loss on Sunday, Butler told his players to take a different approach going forward.
“They are playing relaxed now,” he said. “(Sunday) they were very tight and tense. I told them that as long as they played relaxed, we will be in every game.
In addition to the West Point-Lionville matchup, East Pennsboro and Stroudsburg will face off in today’s other game at 7:30. Both teams are 2-0 so far in the tournament; East Pennsboro has won its two games by 16 combined runs, while Stroudsburg has won each matchup by a lone run.
