Larkin’s no-hitter ends D-East’s season

Conor Larkin wasn’t about to surrender his spot on the pitchers’ mound Wednesday.

Not with the memorable performance he was turning in. And certainly not with Spring-Ford in a fight to prolong its postseason life.

Larkin found a way to stay in the action to the end. It paid very big dividends for the Rams, who rode Larkin’s no-hit pitching effort to a 3-0 victory over Downingtown East in their District 1 Class 6A fifth-place playback semifinal at Ram Stadium.

“I really was,” Larkin said of the determination he felt to not miss completing the no-no. “After we got the lead, I was determined to finish.”

Spring-Ford’s senior righthander found himself in a race with the mandated 100-pitch count heading into the seventh inning. Going into the frame with 87, he opened by walking East leadoff batter Kelsey Launi on five pitches.

But he needed just six throws to dispatch Connor Munnelly and Danny Amicon for two outs. That put him in position to finish the game by retiring pinch-hitter Joe Cestar, which he did on a fly ball to left field.

Larkin’s pitching, coupled with the sixth-inning run he set up by a leadoff double to left field, qualified Spring-Ford for Thursday’s fifth-place final with HatboroHorsham. The winner of the 4 p.m. game at Plymouth Township Park will get the district’s final berth in the PIAA Class 6A tournament; the loser goes home for the spring.

“I didn’t have a lot to work with,” he said. “But we put the ball in play, and that was the key.”

The district’s third seed got insurance in the sixth from Ryne Moore’s booming home run over the left-field fence. The blast scored Ethan Hellberg ahead of him.

It effectively ended the pitchers’ duel Larkin had going with East’s Will Peiffer, who had his own no-hit designs in place through the first five innings. Peiffer survived walking the bases full in the second inning, and issuing another pair of free passes in the fourth, en route to finishing with six strikeouts.

“Their pitcher is good ... a lefty who throws hard and mixes his pitches well,” Spring-Ford head coach Jamie Scheck said. “After the first we were able to get guys on base. But we definitely have to capitalize when we get guys on base.”