Aungst keeps Northampton out of hole
Salisbury graduate’s arm helps knot the best-of-5 championship series at 1-all
Justin Aungst was recently named the new head coach of the Salisbury High School baseball team.
Aungst, a 2014 Salisbury graduate who played Division I baseball at Saint Joseph’s University, wants his players to respond in pressure situations.
He gave a lesson on how it’s done Sunday night at Limeport Stadium in Game 2 of the Blue Mountain League Championship Series.
With his Northampton Giants counting on him to avoid a 2-0 hole in the best-of-five series, Aungst went the distance with a seven-hitter in an entertaining 3-2 victory that evened the series at a game apiece.
He walked one, hit one batter, struck out four and benefited from double plays that ended each of the first three innings.
With Limeport’s fans jingling their cowbells and making lots of noise late in the game, Aungst worked out of some jams. The Bulls left five on base overall, including two runners in scoring position in the fifth and a runner at third in the seventh.
“I threw to contact and didn’t have many strikeouts,” Aungst said. “The defense played really well. We had a couple of chances on offense to open it up, but we got just enough to get the win.”
Aungst said the game-night environment at Limeport is unique.
“You don’t get it anywhere else,” he said. “It’s a fun atmosphere. Their fans are energetic up there [in the grandstand] to say the least. Hopefully the kids at Salisbury could learn from something like this.”
Northampton’s win assured that the BML postseason would not feature all playoff sweeps. Both the two quarterfinal-round series and two semis were one-sided affairs.
But no one expected a sweep from either side in this battle between the two top teams in the league and a rematch of the 2018 finalists. Limeport rolled to a 14-5 Game 1 win Saturday night, but this one had a different course.
The Giants (27-8) bunched two hits and a walk to take a 2-0 lead in the second inning. Jake Wandler had a RBI double and Jared Angerman’s groundout plated another run.
Limeport got a run back in the fourth on Damin Muth’s RBI single to cut the lead in half, but a bases-loaded walk to Steve Sulcoski restored the two-run margin in the fifth.
In the bottom of the fifth, Andrew DeCew singled in a run to get the Bulls back within one, but Aungst worked out of the jam to maintain the lead and then didn’t allow Gianni Sinatore’s one-out double to do any damage in the seventh.
Angerman, playing right field, got a chance to redeem himself in the seventh inning. He went for a diving catch on Sinatore’s ball and couldn’t come up with it allowing Sinatore to get into scoring position.
But on the final play, a long foul ball to right by DeCew, Angerman made a nice running catch with his back to the field to end the game.
“That diving catch [attempt] was just instinctual,” Angerman said. “It was the wrong thing to do, but I was just trying to make a play. I felt bad about it. We were playing ‘no doubles defense’ and I wasn’t thinking. Thankfully I got another chance, saw the last ball the whole way and was able to catch it.”
Angerman called it the biggest win of the win of the year for the Giants, who turned it into a best-of-three with two of the three set for Northampton.
Limeport (26-9) fell for the first time after winning four straight postseason games.
“We had baserunners galore it felt like,” Bulls player-manager Mike Cudwadie said. “Aungst pitched a great game and we expect that. These are the types of games, the 3-2s, we expect to play in this series. There’s a reason the Giants and us are here and that’s the pitching and obviously, the lineups too. Aungst is definitely a top pitcher in this league, but we had a chance to beat him and he came out on top. I’m sure we’re going to see him again sometime. Next time, hopefully, it will go our way.”