Northampton, Parkland, Notre Dame, headed for Super Sunday

While both Northampton and Freedom gained revenge Saturday, Parkland gained a memory that may have transcended anything that would have happened had the 2020 high school baseball season been played as scheduled last spring.

The Trojans held an 11-4 lead over Easton entering the bottom of the seventh when a flurry of walks and misplays helped the Red Rovers produce six runs and load the bases.

With Parkland on the precipice of a monumental collapse, graduated senior Jeremy Piatkiewicz, getting his second chance on the mound in the inning, was able to get a strikeout to allow the Trojans to escape 11-10 at Freemansburg in the quarterfinals of the St. Luke’s High School Baseball Tournament.

The harrowing win sends Parkland to Coca-Cola Park for Sunday’s semifinals in the 32team event that has given area scholastic baseball teams a chance to get something back from what they missed when the coronavirus pandemic canceled the 2020 season.

The Trojans, who beat Stroudsburg earlier Saturday in the round-of-16, will play Notre Dame-Green Pond at 5:30 p.m. Sunday after Northampton meets either Emmaus or Freedom in the 2:30 opener. The Green Hornets and Patriots battled late into Saturday night at Freemansburg in the last of four games at that site.

“Give to Easton,” Piatkiewicz said. “They battled. They did a hell of a job. They left it all on the field. We left it all on the field. Now I can’t wait to play at Coca-Cola Park.”

Parkland had a 6-1 lead before Easton trimmed the gap to 6-4. A five-run sixth inning by the Trojans seemed to put the game away, but the Red Rovers, and the excitement, were far from done.

“I am done with high school and this is a great way to finish it,” Piatkiewicz said. “It’s great to be back with the guys. We’re having a great time. You can’t ask for anything better than this.”

Parkland has 46 stolen bases in its first five tournament games and has been caught just once. Piatkiewicz has been the leader of the running red uniforms with 10 steals.

“We want to put up runs and get on teams early,” Piatkiewicz said. “We got to the District 11 6A semifinals last year losing to Liberty. I thought we had that game, but it came down to pitching again. This one, though, was so emotional. It’s baseball. Anything can happen.”

The Trojans had trouble closing out the Easton game, but received quality earlier from Dylan Duborg in the Stroudsburg win and got 4 1⁄3 solid innings from Nikhil Patel early against the Red Rovers.

Luke Meehan and Jack Giovenco were two of Parkland’s offensive standouts in the two wins.

The Trojans will face a battletested Notre Dame that had its own nailbiter in the quarterfinals, outlasting Pennridge 4-3. The Crusaders, who reached the state finals in 2019 have allowed just three runs in their last two games and will be the only non-Eastern Pennsylvania Conference team left in the field.

Turning the tide: Northampton avenged an earlier loss to Nazareth in the tournament by beating the Blue Eagles 8-3 behind 4 2⁄3 innings of no-hit pitching by Evan Zwolenik, the 2019 Morning Call pitcher of the year.

“Nazareth won the battle, but we won the war,” said Konkrete Kids coach Mick Sugra said. “Zwolenik was great. He had 67 pitches to work with to stay under the pitch count and he was the story. Jeff Erschen came in and gave up only one hit.”

Sugra said it is not often a team has a pitcher of the year who’s a junior and said Zwolenik was primed for a big senior season.

“It really hurt him to miss out on his senior year,” Sugra said. “It also hurt us because you don’t see a talent like him very often. But he picked right up where he left off last year with a no-hitter in his first game of the tournament and then had one good inning against Southern Lehigh and was strong against Nazareth.”

Zwolenik had six strikeouts and just one walk. Nazareth scored a couple of runs off Zwolenik thanks to errors.

Offensively, Northampton dealt with Nazareth ace Kyle Mahady and scatched out enough runs. Joe Kerbacher had two hits, two runs and knocked in a run. Mike Kuzio went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored.

“We’re just thrilled to still be playing,” Sugra said. “It has been an awesome opportunity after losing the season. Now our kids really understand what we’re talking about when we say play like there’s no tomorrow. With Lehigh County parks being shut down, you never know when you’re going to get to play again, so we really wanted this win today and we went out and played as a team and got it down.”

Freedom turned the tables on Liberty, the defending District 11 6A champ, 8-4. On Wednesday, the Hurricanes beat the Patriots 9-2.

“Connor Howland pitched a heck of a game for us with three runs allowed in six innings and had a big hit for us with a two-run double and Cade Horwath had some big hits,” Freedom coach Nick D’Amico said. “The rest of the offense was fairly spread around.”

D’Amico said the tournament has been a great experience for his kids.

“One of my seniors said the atmosphere when we played Liberty under the lights the other day was so great, it was something he’ll never forget,” D’Amico said. “That’s what this tournament is all about.”