Early exit again for Phantoms

EAST PIKELAND » It’s a trend Phoenixville wants to buck.

But one it’s finding hard to shake.

For a second straight year, the Phantoms found themselves opening the District 1-5A playoffs with a home game. And once again, they were unable to parlay that advantageous start into an extended post-season run, bowing out Wednesday with a 2-0 loss to Strath Haven.

This time around, Phoenixville (14-6) ran into a Panther unit bolstered by the complete-game pitching of Alex Pak and an offense able to manufacture sufficient run support for the junior southpaw.

It proved an abrupt end to an otherwise promising campaign, one marked by a 10-0 run through the Pioneer Athletic Conference’s Frontier Division — one good enough to earn the Phantoms a berth in the Final Four playoffs — a second division championship and the fourth seed in the 5A field.

“The season goes from 0 to 100, then 100 to 0,” head coach Geoff Thomas said after huddling with his players one last time. “It’s hard to stomach.”

Pak’s bid for a completegame shutout was in a race with the 103-pitch cutoff. He went into the seventh with 24 left, but Phoenixville ran the count up with Wade Carruthers and Adam DeJesus hitting one-out singles in threat to his designs.

But the lefty got the job done one pitch under the limit, coaxing a fly out to second base and striking out the final batter. His line for the seven innings listed five hits and four strikeouts, with no walks issued.

Strath Haven will host eighth-seeded West Chester East — a 10-6 winner over top-seeded Chichester — in Friday’s 5A semifinal.

Three times, Phoenixville got runners to third base: In the second, with Dylan Antonini hitting a double and getting wildpitched a base closer; in the fourth, Drew Kingsbury reaching base on an error, stealing second and moving up off Antonini’s grounder to third; and on Carruthers’ single in the seventh. Each time, Pak and the Panther defense were able to leave the Phantoms empty.

“It’s a tough loss,” Thomas said. “It’s been the scenario the last two games. Their team is wellcoached. They manufactured runs, and we didn’t.”

Phoenixville got a strong pitching effort of its own from Avery Schwartz. Completing the lefty-on-lefty duel of starting pitchers, the junior held the Haven to four hits and a pair of walks while striking out four.