Pizzico takes over as Spring City rolls Oxford
UPPER PROVIDENCE >> It wasn’t his first time filling in for a head coach.
But it may arguably have been one of the lowest-stress gigs Rick Pizzico has ever had.
With the Chester County League American Legion baseball playoffs starting Friday, Pizzico found himself holding the Spring City reins with head coach Mike Gancasz in Connecticut on business. The veteran assistant found the assignment a smooth one, the Red Sox rolling to an 8-1 victory over Oxford at Ram Stadium.
While Zach Male and Jason Bilotti pooled their pitching talents on a two-hitter, secondseeded SC’s offense overcame a slow start against its seventhseeded guests to start the postseason on a high note. And Pizzico was more than happy to see the Red Sox players keep rolling while awaiting their head coach’s return ... which, as it turned out, happened during the game.
“I was coaching in middle schools a number of years,” Pizzico said. “There were times I didn’t have an assistant, so I did it myself. But I like him (Gancasz) back here.”
Oxford, dealing with low numbers and equally low experience level, started the game with a lead in the first inning. After Male got the first two batters on called third strikes, the visitors parlayed successive walks to Jack Brundage, Dylan Bascelli, Kayden King and Chris Yacha into a 1-0 lead.
It proved a short-lived advantage, though, as Spring City got the equalizer in the bottom of the first. The Sox then went ahead in a three-run third, adding pairs of insurance runs in the fifth and sixth to decide the issue.
“That’s been our dilemma the entire season,” Oxford head coach Bruce Michalski noted. “We come out strong, then we falter. Our bats cool off.”
The Sox’ lumber got progressively hotter as the game went on. Andrew Huang was the hottest, going 3-for-4 with a triple and driving in three runs for an organization defending its 2018 Pa. State Championship.
“I was playing ball at Washington University in St. Louis,” Huang said. “I want to use this season to get a lot of reps.”
Like his Sox mates, Huang didn’t read Oxford’s early run as a cause for concern ... not a team that has been on a roll of late.
“We had a slow start to our season,” he said, “but worked our way up to second place. We tried to stay relaxed at the plate. Mike was just missing on some pitches. He’s been pretty reliable.”
When he left after three innings, Male had thrown just 56 pitches; 40 of them, however, came in the first. But he gave up just one hit and struck out three.
Bilotti was solid over the final four, with one walk against four strikeouts. He needed just 51 pitches to record the winning outcome.
“Male didn’t have his best stuff,” Pizzico said, “but he gutted it out. Bilotti came in and was fantastic.”
Huang’s single in the first plated Noah August (walk) to get Spring City on the board. He followed with an RBI triple in the third, scoring in turn off David McCurry’s sacrifice fly to center; and he singled to the left-center gap in the sixth to drive home Zach Kratz (RBI double).
Kratz finished the game 2-for-2 with a pair of sacrifice bunts.
“We try to stay relaxed at the plate,” Huang noted. “We got off to a good start and sustained it.”
While the Sox looked to maintain their pace in Saturday’s second round, Oxford found itself working to stay alive in the double-elimination tournament. It was doing so with a roster Michalski described as being on the young side.
“We have a couple players who didn’t play high-school ball,” he said. “This is the first time they’re playing together. We had 17 players on the roster, and now we’re down to 10.
“But we’re optimistic. We keep encouraging them to play ball.” NOTES >> SC catcher Colin Amerine initiated a nifty double play in the sixth inning to get the Sox out of a runners-on-the-corners jam. He threw to shortstop Brett Leighton to nail a stealing Kayden King, then caught Leighton’s relay to halt — and ultimately throw out — Jack Brundage at third . ... Gancasz made it back to the ballpark in time to drag the Ram Stadium infield after the game.