WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?
New-look Mercer County rallies for Carpenter Cup victory
PHILADELPHIA » Once this year’s Mercer County Carpenter Cup baseball all-stars really get to know each other, they have the potential to be dangerous.
After finishing second to another New Jersey squad, Tri-Cape, last season, the new Mercer contingent learned a little about itself in coming from behind in its first game of the 36th annual Carpenter Cup Classic presented by Nike Wednesday at Major League Baseball’s Urban Youth Academy Showcase Field in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park. With the Philadelphia Flower Show going on nearby, it was Mercer which came into bloom from the fifth inning on by rallying past Southeastern Pennsylvania for a 6-3 win.
With the victory, the team in its first season under manager Dave Angebranndt will return to play at 2 p.m. Friday on adjacent UYA Richie Ashburn Field against the winner of yesterday’s late game between New Jersey’s Olympic/Colonial and Pennsylvania’s Bucks-Mont.
This tri-state, single-elimination event put on by the Phillies brings together some of the top high school baseball all-star teams from Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey year after year to determine who will take home the top prize.
Mercer County, which has won the Cup twice, came close last season, yet many of this year’s all-stars were not on that squad.
The talent pool runs deep as the locals — dressed in brown instead of their customary green and gold — showed from the time Hamilton High West senior right-handed pitcher Dylan Parsons took his place on the mound in the fifth inning.
The team known as SEPA would only manage two more runs and four more hits over the final five innings with Parsons, Steinert High senior righty Noah Rivera, West Windsor-Plainsboro High South senior righty Caleb Kasof and Hun School senior righty Brody Pasieka holding the predominantly Lower Bucks County all-star team in check.
“It was fun,” said Parsons, who was not on the 2021 squad. “My fastball was working, and my slider was moving. I mixed in a couple curveballs, but it was my other pitches that were working best.”
All the McDaniel College-bound hurler did was set down all six batters he faced in the fifth and sixth innings. With Princeton High senior right-hander Kenny Schiavone retiring the last two hitters he faced after Pennsbury junior Ryan Zuckerman and senior Falcon Callan Fang hit back-to-back doubles off him for the game’s first run in the top of the fourth, that stretch grew to eight consecutive batters retired when Parsons took over.
That was key since Mercer did all of its scoring in the bottom of the fifth and sixth.
Notre Dame junior Brendan Buecker tied the game with an double that scored Hun’s Michael Chiaravallo (walk, stolen base). Mercer County loaded the bases with no outs against
Neshaminy senior Matt Mays before Allentown senior Joe Butera hit into a fielder’s choice, which was booted to keep the bases loaded and no outs.
That brought Hun graduate Carson Applegate to the plate, where the University of Kentucky commit shortstop promptly drove a two-run single into left field.
“I think playing from behind gave us a little more of an edge,” said Applegate, whose name also could be heard in the upcoming MLB draft. “When I came up in that situation, I just wanted to do my job and get the ball to the outfield. I found a hole, and we got two runs in.”
Notre Dame senior Jackson Wargo’s sacrifice fly helped Mercer add two more runs without a hit in the sixth inning as SEPA committed a pair of costly errors.
That was a far cry from the way the game had started with Council Rock North senior left-handed pitcher Collin Williams handcuffing Mercer County for three innings. Williams, who has also been mentioned for MLB Draft attention, did not allow a hit, walked one and struck out seven.
Even though Southeastern Pennsylvania got two runs back in the seventh on a two-out, RBI single by Pennsbury senior Reese Hirsh and an ensuing triple from Abington junior Matt Worek, Rivera stranded the runner at third base by striking out New Hope-Solebury sophomore Brooks Saft.
In the eighth, Kasof got out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam with a pair of strikeouts and a ground out to freeze the score before Pasieka
came on to retire all three batters he faced in the ninth and earn the save.