Kline’s arm, Horrocks’ glove help Bears blank Exeter
Nolan Kline made the pitches when he needed to and Shayne Horrocks made the routine and spectacular plays at third base Wednesday night as Boyertown defeated Exeter 2-0 in the opening round of the Berks County Legion League playoffs at Bear Stadium.
Kline tossed a complete-game three-hitter and wrapped up the win with three straight strikeouts after allowing his only walk to open the seventh inning. Horrocks scored both runs and Nick DiCiacco had two of the four hits for the Bears off Exeter’s Christian Pochron.
Boyertown (24-11) will travel to West Lawn, a 4-1 winner over Twin Valley, Thursday night at a time to be determined following a 5 p.m. Junior Legion contest at Owls Field. Twin Valley will visit Exeter (5-13) at 5:30 p.m.
“We played good defense. Nolan threw well,” said Boyertown manager Rick Moatz. “Our pitching and defense won the game for us. The hit-and-run we executed got one runner in scoring position.”
Kline (4-1) did not allow a hit until Andrew Barlow doubled to deep left with two out in the fifth. Then two of the first three Blue Jay batters singled in the sixth, but Horrocks fielded two grounders and took them to the third base bag for force outs. In the seventh, Kline walked the leadoff batter on a full-count pitch and fell behind 2-0 on the next, but bounced back with three consecutive strikeouts to end the night with five overall.
“I was feeling good, just trying to help the team win,” said
Kline, who threw 51 of 83 pitches for strikes. “Just locating pitches, hitting my spots. Late in the game, my curveball was working a lot better.”
“Nolan did excellent,” said Horrocks. “I tell the pitchers, I appreciate it when they get me ground balls.”
Horrocks also had four assists, including three straight in the fourth inning. The last of those came when he made a back-handed stab of a hard bouncer over his head and fired to first to end the inning.
Plays like that are no accident for Horrocks, who prides himself on his fielding and puts in a lot of extra time on it.
“I like to work on my defense a lot,” he said. “I try to get extra balls when I can … the tougher plays, rather than the routine plays. Every once in a while, I’ll go to the park and throw it off a wall to get in some extra work. I’m really proud of myself on defense. That’s the most important thing for me.”
“It helps a lot,” Kline said concerning the plays by Horrocks and the errorless defense by the rest of the Bears. “Good defense wins games.”
Boyertown scored in the fourth when Horrocks led off with a walk, beat the throw to second on a grounder to short on a hitand-run play and came home on a line drive single to center by DiCiacco.
The Bears added the other run in the sixth when Horrocks bounced a single through the middle, advanced to third on a throwing error and scored on a sacrifice fly with one out by Caleb Harrison.
“I think we can compete with anyone in the league,” said Kline. “We hit the ball when we need to and move runners.”
In other games, Norchester defeated Shillington 3-1 and will host Oley-Topton Post 217 – a 4-3 winner over Daniel Boone - at 7 p.m. Shillington will visit Boone at 5:30 p.m.