Generals vault Morelanders in LML standings
Fort Washington in first place with one game remaining in regular season
In Fort Washington’s postgame huddle, Jack Jamison defended himself.
The Generals centerfielder was only supposed to put down a standard bunt in the third inning for a squeeze play. Instead, the ball flew off Jamison’s bat and past the pitcher’s mound leading to the first of six runs in the frame for Fort Washington. All Jamison was saying was that he technically didn’t do anything wrong and it all worked out.
Sunday, the Generals as a whole didn’t do anything wrong and things worked out in their favor as they topped host Morelanders 11-3 to jump to the top of the Lower Montco Legion standings.
“We knew it was a big game and that it basically was for first place,” Fort Washington manager Gary Bonitatibus said. “We got a break that they beat Roslyn the other day so we knew if we win today and we win tomorrow, we control first place and get home field. Thankfully, we played a solid game today.”
Morelanders and Fort Washington have both secured bids to the LML playoffs, as has Roslyn, which are slated to begin on Wednesday. League newcomer Mt. Airy, which hosted Roslyn on Sunday night, clinched the final spot over the weekend but can’t finish higher than fourth.
For two innings on Sunday, it didn’t look like anybody was going to score as Morelanders starter and Fort Washington starter Kevin Keown each retired the first six men they faced. The bottom of Fort’s order got things going in the
third, setting up its big inning.
Greg Cooper led off with a double, Jarrod Matz put down a good bunt that Morelanders couldn’t make a play on and catcher Alex Goldenberg was hit by a pitch to load the bags in front of Jamison. Elijah Peck followed Jamison with a seven pitch at-bat that ended in an RBI single.
“It was a big game, I wanted to win, for us, the first seed in the playoffs is a big deal,” Peck, a rising senior at Upper Dublin, said. “We love that stuff, the bunts help us hit more and they seem to bring up the energy.”
Brian McPeak and Keown added RBI singles and Riley Brink’s squeeze bunt scored a run before McPeak came in on a wild pitch to make it 6-0 Fort Washington. It was a good inning, but the Generals knew they couldn’t be content with it.
Earlier this season, Morelanders rallied out of a 5-0 hole to top Fort Washington, so the Generals kept the pressure on.
“It was good to have the insurance runs on the defensive side and offensively, any runs we score keep us going,” Peck said. “We feed off each other, the first hit gets us hyped up and we seem to keep on hitting.”
It wasn’t Morelanders’ day on Sunday but Post 308 has plenty of reason to be optimistic heading into the league playoffs. They’ve been right there with Fort
Washington, Roslyn and Mt. Airy, beating each team at least once this summer.
They also did some good things on Sunday, but most of it came with two outs. Tommy Jacob had a tworun double in the fifth inning that made it a 7-3 game but Morelanders left the bases loaded in that frame and left a pair of runners on in the third.
A lot of credit for that went to Keown, who struck out eight in five innings of work.
“We’ll just get ready for tomorrow and then get ready for the playoffs,” Morelanders manager Kevin Bray said. “The third and fifth inning, we got things rolling a bit but we didn’t get that big hit we asked for and that’s baseball sometimes, it doesn’t always fall your way.”
Peck reached base four times on Sunday with his RBI single, two walks and an RBI double that concluded Fort Washington’s four-run sixth inning. Jamison had three hits, Keown had two RBI to aid his cause and Matz reached four times. Goldenberg had an RBI single in the sixth and also had a nice game behind the plate working with Keown, reliever Garret Breslin and Peck, who threw the seventh inning.
Fort Washington is the defending LML champions and Peck said he’s expecting the other three playoff teams to try and knock them off early in the doubleelimination tournament.
“You never know what’s going to happen in the playoffs and Mt. Airy is just as good as the top three,” Bonitatibus said. “Kids can get nervous or don’t perform so it’s good to play those close games during the season that have a little bit of that playoff feel.”
Peck said he’s confident across the board in his team and Bonitatibus noted that the Generals have gotten pretty consistent pitching and defense throughout the season, which bodes well heading into the playoffs.
It doesn’t feel like there’s a real favorite going into the LML playoffs and it could come down to whatever of the four squads best makes use of the lessons it picked up during the regular season.
“If fate has it and we see these guys again, we’ll analyze the games we played against them and make the adjustments we need to,” Bray said. “You have to be confident. It’s been a long season but we’ve done what we needed to do to be in a position to succeed. That’s all we can ask for and the guys are ready to go.”