Blue Mountain League playoffs begin
Neefe leaving with some great memories
Egypt Memorial Park in Whitehall Township has become the mecca for Blue Mountain League baseball at this time of year.
Since the Northern Yankees moved to Curt Simmons Field from Coplay’s Balliet Stadium, Egypt’s Curt Simmons Field has been a busy place with fellow tenant Iron Valley Real Estate Orioles joining the Yankees as perennial BML powerhouses.
This year is no different. The 2021 champion Yankees and last year’s champion Orioles are the top two seeds for the six-team BML playoffs, which are set to begin Saturday.
The No. 1-seeded Yankees (22-8) and the second-seeded Orioles (20-10) both received first-round byes and advance directly into the semifinals.
No. 3 seed Martins Creek (19-11), which reached the finals last year before losing to the Orioles will host No. 6 Hellertown (14-15-1) in Game 1 of the one of the first-round series, and the No. 4-seeded Limeport Bulls (18-10-2) will entertain the No.. 5-seeded Northampton Giants (17-11-2) in Game 1 of the other first-round matchup.
Hellertown-Martins Creek will play at 5 p.m. at Pacchioli Field, and Northampton-Limeport will go under the lights at 7 p.m. at Limeport Stadium.
Sites will flip on Sunday in the best-of three series as the Bulls and Giants will play at 1 p.m. at Northampton High School, and the Royals and Creekers will meet at 1:30 at Hellertown’s Dimmick Park.
If both first-round series are sweeps, the semifinals would start Tuesday night. If they are not sweeps, the semis would begin Thursday.
It will be interesting to see what kind of scheduling arrangement is made because both the Yankees and Orioles would be scheduled to host games No. 1, 3 and 5 on the same dates in the semifinals, and Egypt Memorial
Park doesn’t have lights. Weekend games could be accommodated easily with doubleheaders.
No matter what is worked, Egypt figures to be a busy place over the next several weeks.
The Yankees are looking for a deeper run after being the No. 1 seed entering last year’s BML playoffs and losing to Martins Creek in the semifinals.
“The playoffs are always scary because pitching controls the game, and we have one pitcher [Quinn Warmkessel] who has some arm trouble and another [Dylan Sattazahn] who left to join another league,” said Yankees manager Brian Polaha. “We’re going to rely a lot on Braden Collazo and Mikey Myro.
“Our lineup is really good. We have a dangerous offense, but you might say we are built for the regular season because of our depth. In the playoffs it’s different because the pitching is the key, and you’re seeing each team’s best pitchers every game where in the regular season that doesn’t always happen.”
Leading the Yankees’ attack are Derek Holmes (.480, 40 RBIs, 17 extra-base hits) and Jacen Nalesnik (.455, 39 RBIs, 15 extrabase hits). Both of them are MVP candidates.
Casey Rother, who is coming off a record-breaking career at Lehigh University, missed a lot of games for the Yankees due to vacations but has been more of a regular participant in recent weeks and makes the attack even more formidable. The Yankees are batting . 356 as a team with 96 extra-base hits, including 30 home runs.
The Orioles, who beat the Yankees 2-1 on Wednesday in a potential playoff preview, are hitting .314 as a team with 78 extra-base hits and 15 home runs.
They are led by player-manager Zach Delp (.322, 20 RBIs, six home runs, 21 walks) and Ian Csencsits (.473, 27 RBIs, 18 extrabase hits) and Dom Bayo (.356, 25 RBIs, 13 extra-base hits).
“I look at the six playoffs teams and I wouldn’t be surprised if any of the top four win it,” Polaha said. “As usual, it’s going to come down to getting good pitching and clutch hitting. We’re going to have a lot of competitive series.”
Brian Neefe exits with great memories
Even at age 75 and with 52 seasons as the head softball coach at Southern Lehigh behind him, Brian Neefe didn’t really want to retire.
But while his heart and mind always wanted to push forward, his body was telling him something else.
“I’ve got back surgery coming up in about two weeks, and the rehab for the back surgery could be as much as six months,” he said. “Last year was a difficult one simply from a pain standpoint with my back. It kind of dominated everything else that was going on.
“I have spinal stenosis, which puts a tremendous amount of pressure on your spine, and I had been hoping it could be treated with steroid injections and things like that. I tried everything but surgery, but at this point that’s the only thing left.”
Neefe said that if he could just sit in a chair all day and do nothing, he’d be fine. But that has never been his style.
“But as soon as I try to do something like rake leaves or shovel snow, the pain is unbearable,” he said. “I couldn’t even carry a bucket of softballs from the bench to the pitching area. Basically, you’re limited to becoming a vegetable and sitting and doing nothing.
“So I am going down to the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, and they have someone who is supposedly the guru of back surgeons. Hopefully, that’s going to solve the problems.”
The back issues are the latest of Neefe’s health concerns. Within the past three years he underwent a heart catheterization procedure that required the insertion of stents in several arteries and then he suffered a stroke.
Through it all Neefe’s best therapy was getting to coach the game of softball and his kids at Southern Lehigh who knew they were being led by a legend.
In 2022 the Spartans players, who thought it might be Neefe’s last season got him one last District 11 title and made it to the second round of the state tournament. Neefe was named The Morning Call’s co-coach of the year along with Palisades leader Jill Amato, who considered it a great honor to share the award with him.
“I was going to keep coaching through it, but people in my family have encouraged me to do something about my back and I’ve decided to listen to them and go ahead with the surgery,” Neefe said. “I’ve got a great wife who takes care of me. I can’t complain a bit.”
Neefe also can’t complain about one of the greatest coaching careers in Lehigh Valley sports that featured nine District 11 titles, 28 Colonial League championships and a trip to the state finals in 1977, when Southern Lehigh was one strike out away from PIAA gold but lost to Twin Valley in a walk-off heartbreaker at Topton.
“I remember our left fielder being so upset because she thought she could have caught the ball, but she really had no chance,” Neefe said.
The good memories, however, far outweigh the bad, starting with his relationship with longtime assistant Roni Grube and getting to see another longtime friend, Pen Argyl coach Bill Schankel.
Neefe remembered being offered the job by former Southern Lehigh athletic director Jim Abbott on a football field. Neefe was originally a football coach and didn’t know a lot about softball, but that changed in a hurry.
“I can still remember things from when we started, like the infield being all grass and having dirt spots at each base and 10 players being allowed on the field,” he said. “I also remember that our uniforms were buttondowned white blouses and cutoff blue jeans. I also remember all of the songs and the cheers the girls had and all of the umpires and opposing coaches I’ve met.”
There were too many outstanding player to count, and Neefe always took pride in turning young players into successful adults.
One of the most special was Hope Donnell, who was on one of his first teams. Donnell went on to win a state title at Northwestern Lehigh, coached at Lehigh University and became a high school athletic director. She joined him in the Lehigh Valley Softball Hall of Fame.
Neefe also has his own collection of favorite expressions.
One of the best to summarize his career is: “Never had I had so much fun working so hard.”
His players would probably say the same thing.