Notre Dame-Green Pond gains revenge
Crusaders beat Tigers to stay undefeated after losing title to rivals
As someone headed to Villanova in the fall, Notre Dame-Green Pond senior Collin Quintano has a vested interest in Saturday’s Final Four games.
“Oh yeah, I can’t wait,” he said. But Quintano also couldn’t wait for the one scheduled meeting this spring between his Crusaders baseball team and Northwestern Lehigh. The Tigers won both of last year’s contests between the Colonial League rivals, 11-1 during the regular season and 13-3 in the league championship game.
“They got us twice last year and all of us wanted revenge,” Quintano said. “We all had this one on our mind. We wanted to get them back this year.”
Quintano did his part in getting payback. He had two hits, including a two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning, and then came on in relief in the top of the seventh inning with the tying run at the plate and got a strikeout to finish off an 8-5 Notre Dame win over Northwestern.
The victory, earned in blustery conditions, allowed the Crusaders to improve to 3-0 both in the league and overall. The Tigers, under firstyear coach Chad Cooperman, fell to 1-3 overall and 1-2 in the league.
It was a back-and-forth game with Notre Dame scoring three runs in the bottom of the third to take a 4-1 lead and Northwestern answering with four in the fourth to go in front 5-4.
The Crusaders, though, closed the door the rest of the way behind senior pitcher Conner Rex, who worked 6⅔ innings before he reached his pitch count limit at 101.
“There should have been no reason Conner Rex had to come out of that game, but he probably had to throw an extra 20-some pitches because of our errors,” Notre Dame coach Mike Bedics said. “He was done, but it never should have gotten to that point. We’re going to have to play a lot better baseball if we want to be playing into June.”
Notre Dame made four errors and Northwestern Lehigh had three. Of the game’s 13 runs, just two were earned.
But the Crusaders showed resiliency in getting the lead back after giving it up.
Down 5-4 entering the bottom of the fifth, Notre Dame got started when Quintano was hit by a pitch. With two out, Jackson Shollenberger reached on an error at shortstop that allowed Quintano to score. The go-ahead run came on an RBI single by Nicholas Buchman.
Then in the sixth, Collin Brandon singled ahead of Quintano’s two-out, two-run home run to left.
“I wasn’t thinking home run with my approach, I was just trying to stay up the middle,” Quintano said. “But he hung a curveball and I luckily got a piece of it.”
Despite a win in a game that was circled on some calendars, Quintano said it’s important not to get too high or low.
“We’re at a perfect spot right now with our pitching with Ben Moyzan and Conner Rex and with our hitting we’re putting the ball in the right spots,” he said. “We had some errors today, but we can clean it up at practice.”
It’s a senior-laden team with a handful of guys still remaining from 2019 when the program made the state finals. Most of the seniors are going to play in college.
“We’re just trying to get to a point where we’re playing good baseball,” Bedics said. “To this point we haven’t had a lot of days on the field where we can work defensively. Offensively, we’re doing OK because we can swing every day, but some days we can’t get on the field. But we’ll get there and get more work in. We’ve got a good group of kids who work hard.”
Cooperman also believes he has a good team. It’s just a matter of putting a complete effort together.
“We’re about two or three plays away per game from being a really good baseball team,” he said. “That’ll come as they grow and mature. We’ve been struggling late in games and we’re looking for somebody to step up and be a go-to guy whether that’s offensively or defensively.”
Both teams are back in action Monday. Notre Dame travels to Saucon Valley and Northwestern hosts Cooperman’s alma mater, Salisbury.
In other local baseball games: Southern Lehigh 11, Bangor 2 The Spartans got 16 hits, including four from Matt Tankred, who pitched a no-hitter on Wednesday. The senior was one of four players to drive in two runs or more. Will Woodring had three hits and three RBIs and Christian Pickell had three hits and drove in two runs for Southern Lehigh, which improved to 4-0. Pen Argyl 9, Northern Lehigh 3 The Green Knights got a home run and four RBIs from Reid Holden and three hits, an RBI and a run scored from George Pultz in getting their first win of the season after three losses.
Pocono Mountain East 8, Pleasant Valley 6
The Cardinals rallied from a 4-0 deficit with four runs in the third and four more in the sixth to post an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference win over host Pleasant Valley. Julian Lopez had a double, triple and knocked in five runs for the Cardinals who got innings from Adam Horvath before he hit the pitch count limit at 100. It was Pocono East’s first win of the season while the Bears lost for the first time after two wins.
Pocono Mountain West 8, East Stroudsburg South 5
Lots of late runs in this one as the Panthers struck for four runs in the top of the eighth and held on for an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference win. It was 2-2 through six innings and each team scored a pair of runs in the seventh to force an extra inning. Joel Weirich led West by going 2-for-5 with a double and two RBIs. Matt Marinovich worked 6⅔ innings, striking out seven. Ross Huffman led South by going 3-for-4 with a double, triple, run scored and RBI. Luke Randall allowed just two earned runs over six innings and struck out six.
Palmerton 5, Jim Thorpe 4 The Blue Bombers rallied for four runs in the bottom of the seventh to pull out a nonleague win over the Olympians.
Softball
Northern Lehigh 13, Pen Argyl 10
Trialing 7-3 to the top of the sixth, the Bulldogs erupted for 10 runs and went on to post its second Colonial League win of the season. Kaitlyn Stock and Jordan Hemingway each went 3-or-5 with doubles for the Bulldogs. Morgan Rissmillr and Grace Weaver each went 3-for-3 and combined for five RBIs for the Green Knights.
Schuylkill Haven 10, Jim Thorpe 6
The Olympians fell in their opener despite multi-hit games by Tara McLean and Jada Mahmade.