Crash Landing
Spring City makes early exit from Pa. state tournament
EPHRATA» Circumstances pointed to a long day for Spring City.
An early run deficit against Beech Creek, combined with several low-production at-bats, had the Red Sox in a fix for much of Wednesday’s game at the Pa. State Tournament. That had a critical impact on the locals, whose late run at BC fell short in a 3-2 loss in this losers’ bracket contest.
With both teams playing for their post-season lives, Beech Creek scored three times in the first to claim the victory. That proved to be enough to give the Region 7 champions the surviving win, even though they were shut out the rest of the way and SC closed the gap with runs in the seventh and eighth.
“This is not how I saw it ending,” Spring City manager Mike Gancasz said after his squad (2410) wrapped up its 2017 season with a round of hugs and chats at Ephrata High School’s War Memorial Field. “We couldn’t come up with baserunners. We put some on too late.”
The Sox looked to pitching ace Cam Michaud to spearhead a
turnaround from Tuesday’s 11-inning 7-6 loss to Ambridge Baden in the tournament’s opening round. ButMichaud and his mates were roughed up in a first inning that saw BC get all its runs with benefit of just two hits, three walks and an error fueling the output.
Though he worked twohit shutout ball the rest of the way, the 33-pitch first took its toll onMichaud. He fell one out short of going the distance, his 120-pitch count forcing Gancasz to bring Dawson Moss in to finish the affair.
“Cam was a little off at the beginning,” Gancasz noted. “But he’s a veteran guy. He made adjustments and kept us in the game.
“He did what he needed to do.”
Beech Creek starting pitcher Landon Breon came close to the 120-pitch cutoff, but he was able to complete the game before hitting themark. It was a relief for his manager, who used three hurlers in the team’s 9-4 loss to Ephrata Tuesday.
“In the sixth,” manager Zach Rote said, “I went out to talk to him. I told him ‘No worries, I’m not going to take you out’.”
With only one strikeout to Breon’s credit, the putout workload fell on him and his defensive mates. They were effective in handling that task, limiting Spring City to a pair of Brad Clem- ens singles through the first six innings.
The Sox’ other baserunners in that span were Nick Price, hit by a pitch in the second; and J.C. Reed and Sean McHugh, who drew walks in the fifth. Formuch of the afternoon, Spring City saw its hard hits handled without incident by BC.
“That meant we had 26 plays by the defense,” Rote noted. “That was huge.”
“We stung a few,” Gancasz noted. “Thomas (Hughes) had hits to left field and right field, and Kasey (Caras) had another to the outfield. But they came up and made the plays.”
Beech Creek’s big first at-bat was started by Toner Corl walking on four pitches. Talon Falls and Asher Corl followed with singles to the left side to score Toner, and Falls came home when a pickoff attempt at third ended up with the throw going into left field.
Wyatt Koch and Breon then drew back-to-back walks to load the bases for Connor Bauman, whose grounder to short resulted in Breon being erased but Asher scoring the ultimate game-winning run.
“Yesterday, our kids had cobwebs,” Rote said. “We needed the kids to get them out of their system today. They bounced back in the first ... then the bats went dead.”
Harvey’s leadoff single in the seventh got Spring City’s offense on track. He advanced to second off Sam Barletta’s sacrifice bunt toward the mound, then came home when Reed lined an RBI single to right.
In the eighth, the Sox gave their fans more hope with another small-ball run. Clemens drew a leadoff walk, moved to second off Hughes’ bunt and on to third, and he scored when Quinn McKenna singled to left.
But a 1-2-3 ninth brought Spring City’s season to an end. The two losses at states contrasted to the Red Sox’ combined 10-0 championship runs in the Chester County League and Pa. Region 3 tournaments leading in to states.
“Did I think we’d go two and out at states? Not honestly,” Gancasz said. “It was a great run, and a great season.”
As for 2018, Gancasz wouldn’t make any prediction other than seeing veterans like Michaud and Ja- cob Mathew depart.
“It’s tough to lose veterans like them,” he said. “Mathew was like another coach ... I respected his opinion on plays during games.
“It was a pleasure to have those two.”
Gancasz will also be looking to how many players from Spring City’s Junior American Legion baseball program, which qualified for its Pa. State Tournament Wednesday, come out for the Senior Legion team.
NOTES» Michaud had three strikeouts against his seven walks. ... Moss faced just one batter in his relief stint, getting Breon on a groundout. ... The Spring City defense distinguished itself by turning double plays in the fifth and sixth innings. Reed was part of both twinkillings, most notably in the sixth when he fielded Mitch Smith’s liner and relayed to Caras to double Breon off first.