Players and spectators won’t soon forget Tuesday’s slate of Little League action at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford — especially the contingent from West Point.
Down 11-3 after three innings of play, West Point pulled off an incredible late rally to defeat Lionville 13-12 to stay alive in the Pennsylvania Little League 9-11 State Tournament.
West Point head coach Eric Butler was mostly at a loss for words after the game to describe his team’s thrilling rally that culminated with a walk-off hit-by-pitch in the bottom of the sixth inning.
“I told them that they’ve got to start somewhere and stay positive,” Butler said following the win. “Get up and motivate your teammates and just try to play baseball. They just kept grinding away and good things started to happen.”
Both starting pitchers were chased in the first inning as each team put up a three-spot to start the game. Lionville kept the offense going with four in the second and four in the third to turn the game into a blowout.
Butler’s message to his team at that point was quite simple: Start scoring or you’re going to get mercy-ruled.
The group of youngsters quickly adhered to Butler’s message, as West Point sent nine batters to the plate in the fourth and pushed across four runs to narrow Lionville’s lead to 11-7.
After that inning, West Point never stopped rolling.
Anthony Scarton had a two-run double in the fifth as part of his five-RBI day, and Jacob Hornyak added an RBI single to move the game even closer.
Still, Lionville took a 12-10 lead into the final inning and had a chance to escape. However, West Point scored on a wild pitch and a single before Hayden Porterfield was plunked with the bases loaded to advance West Point and leave Lionville heartbroken.
“This is what we needed,” Butler said. “For three innings we played like garbage. Then we refocused and got everybody together and played three outstanding innings.”
The two teams combined for 30 hits and five errors in a contest that took nearly two and a half hours to complete.
After getting shelled for 11 runs over those first three innings, Butler turned to Cameron Elder, who was the only pitcher in the game to find a groove. He limited Lionville to just one run over the final three innings.
“He’s one of those guys that we have that can come in and help us save games,” Butler said. “We try to save him until the fifth or sixth innings but we had two kids struggle on the mound and we had to turn to him. He kept pounding the zone and really made them earn it.”
Tuesday’s other contest didn’t feature nearly as much drama.
East Pennsboro continued its dominance in the tournament, improving to 3-0 with an 11-1, four inning victory over Stroudsburg to advance to Thursday’s championship game.
East Penn’s bats got going from the jump as the team pushed across three runs in the first and then a five-spot in the second inning.
Chase Deibler had three base hits and three RBI in the game for East Penn, which has won its three games by a combined 25 runs.
Head coach Tyler Comp credits Monday’s off day as a chance for his team to refocus and let loose a bit after two tough games over the weekend.
“It’s always a good break mentally,” he said. “The kids put a little bit more pressure on themselves than normal games and we just have to keep reminding them that it’s baseball. It was good to have a day off of baseball and being a kid is good for them.”
In addition to 11 hits at the plate for East Penn, starting pitcher Mason Smith spun a solid game on the mound.
Smith threw all four innings, allowing just five hits while striking out three.
“I thought Mason had a lot of great pitches today, especially towards the end,” Comp said. “He feels really confident. He’s not overpowering but he really moves the ball in and out around the plate.”
Because East Pennsboro has yet to lose a game, they’ll be off again today before getting two chances at winning Thursday’s championship in the double elimination format.
West Point, meanwhile, will face Stroudsburg today at 6 p.m. for the chance to play East Penn on Thursday.
