Crist lifts Brandywine Heights to win vs. Kutztown

Sophomore Joe Crist and his Brandywine Heights teammates entered the bottom of the sixth inning Tuesday in a very unfamiliar position.

After mowing down their first four opponents, the Bullets trailed division rival Kutztown by one run and felt pressure for the first time this season.

“We were facing weaker teams earlier this season and seeing weaker pitching,” Crist said. “This was our reality check.”

Jesse Breunig and Crist withstood the heat and delivered the big blows in a five-run inning, which led to Brandywine’s 7-5 victory over the Cougars in a Berks Baseball League game Tuesday at Mertztown.

Breunig’s one-out RBI double tied it before Crist slugged a three-run home run to right-center off Grant Fitzgerald with two outs.

“I knew it was a big division game and I just wanted to put it in play,” Crist said. “It was a high outside pitch. I just waited on it.”

The comeback win spoiled a strong effort by Kutztown right-hander Jacob Rabert, who limited the Bullets (2-0 Berks IV, 5-0) to two runs and three hits through five innings. They had scored 53 runs in their first four games and batted a robust .441.

Rabert kept them off balance by mixing his fastball and curveball. After Chase Renner reached on an infield error to lead off the sixth, Cougars coach Tim Mertz replaced Rabert with the left-handed Fitzgerald.

“He was at 92 pitches,” Mertz said. “I just felt it was time. I squeezed the rock and got everything I could get out of it. This was his second consecutive really good outing.”

Offensively, Kutztown (02, 2-4) manufactured three runs off Renner, the Penn State commit, with just one ball barely reaching the outfield grass. He allowed three singles and struck out seven, but he walked five and hit one without his best command.

“The key was that we were disciplined at the plate,” Mertz said. “Renner is definitely above what we’ve been seeing. He’s at the elite level in high school.”

“He (Renner) gutted it out,” Brandywine coach Chris Cole said. “He gave us a chance to win.”

Tim Harrier, who went 2-for-4, and Carson Renner, Chase’s younger brother, followed Crist’s home run with back-toback doubles for the Bullets’ seventh run.

Grant Parks pitched the final two innings for Brandywine and did not allow a hit, although the Bullets committed two errors in the seventh that led to two runs before they finally ended it.

“A game like this was going to happen at some point,” Cole said. “You’re not going to roll over every team. And it’s Kutztown, a good, fundamentally sound team. You’re not going to blow out Kutztown.

“We needed one of these games. That was big. We had big at bats and made big pitches. They showed me a little something today, that the moment’s not too big for them.”

It wasn’t for Crist, a second baseman who will remember the first home run of his high school career.

“He’s capable of that,” Cole said. “He’s at the top of our lineup and more about contact. He’ll take those big swings sometimes and it paid off today.”