RALLY NOT ENOUGH
Southern Lehigh, Colonial League and District 11 champs, sees season end at 21-4
It was a half-inning quite familiar to a team that won 21 games and two championships this spring.
Southern Lehigh sent 10 to the plate, ripped six hits and scored five runs in the bottom of the seventh of Monday night’s PIAA Class 5A first-round game against Donegal.
The problem was the Spartans entered the inning down 11-2 and the only thing their five-run uprising did was make the final score a bit more respectable.
In an uncharacteristic performance, the Colonial League and
District 11 champions made five errors that contributed to four unearned runs and never recovered from a slow start in an 11-7 loss to Donegal, District 3’s No. 4 team.
While Southern Lehigh’s season ended at 21-4, Donegal (17-8) will move on to Thursday’s quarterfinals against fellow District 3 member, Ephrata, a 9-7 winner over Peters Township in its first-round game.
Donegal scored three runs in the first inning and had a 5-0 lead after 1 ½ innings.
The Spartans seemed to get back in it with two runs in the bottom of the second, but three Indians runs in the fourth and three more in the sixth created a mountain too high climb for Southern Lehigh.
“The disappointing part was just the energy we came out with; that was the frustrating part,” said veteran Spartans coach Todd Miller. “We got ourselves behind and dug ourselves a hole. We didn’t make enough plays and put ourselves in bad situations and when we needed to make a play, we didn’t.”
Donegal got three hits and two runs scored from Colin Eckinger and a two-run double by Andrew Small. Jonathan Holmes homered and Landon Sexton tripled in three in the first and capped off a big day with a two-run single in the sixth.
Starter Luke Lea and Matt Tankred, who came on in relief in the third, entered the game with ERAs of 0.69 and 0.91.
But Donegal got to them for a combined 10 hits and seven earned runs.
“They barreled up a lot of baseballs and got a lot of timely hits,” Miller said. “We left runners on base all day long that could have brought us back into the game. We couldn’t get hits with two outs or runners in scoring position and they got a lot of them. If we could have picked up one run here and one run there, it could have been a different story.”
Donegal’s Jonathan Holmes worked 6 ⅓ innings, allowing nine hits with three walks and four strikeouts. He ran out of gas and pitches, throwing 108. He had to throw some extra pitches due to six errors.
“It wasn’t a clean game, but at this stage, we’ll take it,” Indians coach Jeff Hartman said. “Style points mean nothing.”
Hartman doesn’t consider Holmes to be his staff ’s ace.
“We have a 1A, a 1B and a 1C,” Hartman said. “He’s probably our 1C but he cranked one up for us today. He pitched great. We just didn’t catch the ball.”
Hartman said Donegal, which is located Mount Joy Township in Lancaster County, gained a lot of confidence with three runs in the first.
“We started out swinging the bats and figured out pretty early that we can win,” he said. “We have a young team and when you’re in the state tournament you wonder. Now we’re looking forward to the next round.”
Donegal, which is in the tournament for the first time since 2015 when it reached the semifinals, used three different pitchers to get the final three outs.
“It got a little hairy, but we’re happy,” Hartman said.
Miller wasn’t happy with his team’s performance, but proud of its effort all season.
“It’s a frustrating way to end it when you don’t play well,” Miller said. “But they had a hell of a year and our six seniors had a hell of a career. They re-wrote some record books. Some of the guys competed for two years, some for three and some for four and they put us in a good place. We’ve had got some decent young kids coming back, but they’ve got some big shoes to fill.”
PIAA 6A EMMAUS 1, OWEN J. ROBERTS 0:
The Green Hornets bounced back from a disappointing 6-1 loss to Liberty in the District 11 6A final to knock off the District 1 champions and reach the state quarterfinals for the second straight year. The Green Hornets (22-5) had just four hits but one of them was a home run from Tyler LePage in the fourth inning. They rode the 7-hit pitching of Luke Deschenes to the victory. Deschenes walked one and struck out nine in improving to 12-1.
Emmaus will play Hazleton in Thursday’s quarterfinals. The Cougars beat Coatesville 1-0. Hazleton beat Emmaus 9-0 on April 24.