Roslyn squad falls in title game

HUNTINGDON VALLEY » Colin Kelly’s glove enveloped the ball as he dropped to one knee in center field.

The Roslyn outfielder concluded a very busy night for himself by making the grab for the third and final out of the seventh inning, stranding two runners and extending the Blue Hawks’ season by one more day. Mike Yoast did his part on the hill and the offense finally caught a break or two to send Roslyn to the Lower Montco Legion finals.

It took a lot of guts, but Roslyn found a way in a game where not much was going its way and edged Mt. Airy 2-1 Friday night at Lower Moreland High School.

“We knew Mike was going to pitch a good game so we had to do was get some hits,” Kelly said. “We’ve been struggling here and there throughout the year but for the most part, we’d been hitting well and that’s what we had to do tonight.”

Yoast, who threw a complete game, relied on location and repetition to keep a hard-swinging Mt. Airy lineup in check. The No. 4 seed in the LML, Mt. Airy was also in its first season in the league after coming over from the defunct Philadelphia League.

The Gold Stars more than held their own and Yoast, a righty, knew he couldn’t take a lot of chances with the Mt. Airy lineup.

“I was trying to keep it low,” Yoast said. “They had a lot of pop-ups and ground balls, bunch of fly balls. They were hitting them hard, but most of the time it was right at our guys.”

Most of Mt. Airy’s hits came on bloops or flares just past the range of the infield but also just short of the ball-hawking outfield trio of Kelly, Cam Marrow and Jordan Grimaldi, who took

care of any long flys. Yoast said he knew his teammates had his back, which helped him stay locked in.

Offensively, Roslyn was out of sorts through five innings. The Blue Hawks got their leadoff batter to second with no outs three out of the first four innings only for those frames to fall apart due to a myriad of things going wrong.

“I told the boys I don’t know if they had their best game and I don’t know if I had my best game, but somehow you had a real gutcheck at the end and got the runs across we needed,” Roslyn manager Mark Troyer said. “It’s hard to do that, especially when it seems like a lot of things are going against you, and opportunities to score are getting squandered.”

Kelly was caught on an illfated attempt to steal third in the first inning, Marrow got caught in a run-down in the fifth but the most crushing setback for Roslyn came in the fourth inning. After Joe DiMaria led off with a double and moved to third on a passed ball with one out, catcher Steve Vogl scorched a liner down the third base line.

Vogl’s shot went right into third baseman Evan O’Leary-Lee’s glove and he was able to reach out and tag the base before DiMaria could get back for a frameending double play.

“Some of that’s on me, I took a chance on the steal at third base, then we had the line-drive double play and a couple other things started to seem reminiscent of other games we’ve had this season,” Troyer said. “I can’t be any more proud of how they came through in a tough situation with the season on the line.”

Mt. Airy scored its lone run in the fourth inning when Tyson Maddox hit a two-out single to right with men on first and second. Lead runner Samuel Istvan scored, but Grimaldi came up firing and threw the ball to Vogl at home to initiate what turned into an inningending rundown along the third base line.

Realizing it was running out of chances, Roslyn finally came through in the bottom of the sixth. Kelly and DiMaria led off with back-to-back singles, part of a 2-for-3 day for each before George Jacob hit into a fielder’s choice to put runners on the corners.

Troyer called upon designated hitter Griffen Whittenberg to put down a squeeze bunt, which didn’t work at first. But once the count went back in Whittenberg’s favor, Troyer called for the bunt again and it paid off.

“We’d been hitting the ball hard all game,” Kelly said. “We finally got them to go through. Griff’s bunt was perfect, we did exactly what we asked of him and he saved the game for us.”

Whittenberg’s bunt went up the first base line and glanced under the charging first baseman’s glove to allow Kelly to score the tying run. Vogl followed by hitting another laser to third, but he was able to reach after the third baseman could only knock the shot down and hold Jacob at the bag.

Jack Ruch then provided the winning run when he singled to left, scoring Jacob.

Yoast had gone from trying to keep it a one-run game to trying to send his team into the weekend in a matter of a few batters.

“I knew I could let them maybe hit it a little more, I didn’t have to keep it down in the strike zone quite as much,” Yoast said.

“Mike’s just a real steady guy, he always has the same demeanor out there,” Troyer said. “He’s quiet but he has a real intensity and competitiveness that he goes out and really does battle.”

Kelly, who made eight total outs in center field, caught the first out in the top of the seventh. Marrow had the second out, making a long run from right field to catch a fly ball at the border of foul ground. After a single and a walk, Yoast gave up a fly to center where Kelly put a wrap on the game.

“I just knew to get behind it, get my glove around it and don’t drop it,” Kelly said.

Roslyn heads to No. 1 seed Fort Washington on Saturday, needing to beat the Generals to force a decisive game for the LML title on Sunday.

“We can clean it up a little bit in the field after losing to them last night,” Kelly said. “We just need to get our bats going and find some hits.” Roslyn 2, Mt. Airy 1