Spiewak a real Trooper for Norristown

LOWER PROVIDENCE » It doesn’t get any easier for Paul Spiewak these days.

The right-hander has been around long enough to know that sometimes you’ve got it and sometimes you don’t.

Tuesday night Spiewak had it, pitching Norristown to an 8-1 win over Trooper in a contest that wasn’t completely settled until the Diamonds posted six runs in the top of the seventh inning. Until then, Spiewak battled. He had to, as Trooper’s Randy Mower was matching him pitch for pitch. For five innings.

But the Diamonds broke through, getting a run in the sixth on Lenny DelGrippo’s RBI double, then putting the contest away with a 6-run seventh, that featured. Bryan Mulhern’s threerun homer.

“I used to love to pitch on nights like this,” said Spiewak of the hot and humid conditions. “It takes longer these days to get loose, but it’s easier on nights like this.

“Of course it’s more difficult to

get through the sixth and seventh because because of the heat.”

By the seventh the contest was still in doubt, but Norristown hung a six-spot on Mower in the top of the seventh in an inning highlighted by Mulhern’s homer.

Until then, the contest could have gone either way as Norristown was having its troubles with Mower.

“Randy’s one of the better pitchers in the league,” Spiewak said, “so coming

up with the runs that we did in the seventh was the difference in the game.”

Early on, the contest looked like a pitchers’ duel, as the Diamonds got a firstinning run on DelGrippo’s fsolo homer and the Braves matched it in the second when Cole Luzins managed a bloop double, moved to third on a ground out and scored on Joe Pedorenko’s ground out.

The contest stayed that way until the Norristown sixth when DelGrippo’s RBI double chased home Kyle Wenger.

The Diamonds salted it away with the six-run sixth

that saw them load the bases with nobody out, then push across six runs, half of them on Mulhern’s homer.

By then, the verdict was no longer in doubt, and Spiewak pitched around a leadoff single to close the game out.

“Getting those runs in the seventh was the difference in the game,” Spiewak said. Norristown 8, Trooper 1

Norristown Trooper

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WP – Paul Spiewak LP – Randy Mower 2B- Cole Luzins; Kyle Wenger; Lenny DelGrippo. HR – DelGrippo; Bryan Mulhern. SB - Luzins