Pennridge Legion team knocks out Souderton
Lippincott, defense shine in shutout win over Souderton
PERKASIE — Rotating its talented, deep roster with ease, versatile Pennridge used a sparkling defensive effort and a gritty, complete-game shutout by starter Ben Lippincott to squeeze out a 2-0 victory over rival Souderton Tuesday night at Second Street Park.
“I’m not afraid to put any one of my ball players at any position,” Pennridge coach Rocky Wright said. “You can’t take anything away from our defense - we made some great plays on this fifield tonight.”
Pennridge turned three crucial double plays, including one in the fififth when left
fifielder Sean McLeod caught a deep flfly ball by Brad Stoltzfus and gunned it home to get David Straub, trying to tag up.
“Sean hadn’t had a start in a while - last night he was gonna get a start but he had orientation (at West Virginia
University),” Wright said. “He did a great job, and not only him but (Evan) Tice, who hasn’t played right before, threw a bullet to the plate and caught every ball hit to him. (Tom) Nuneviller, in center, is a work in progress but he’s got the tools to do it. He’s got the speed, he gets a good jump on the ball.”
Said McLeod of his big throw home in the fififth: “I worked a lot during the high school season getting behind the ball, so I was able to get as much momentum as I could going forward because it was a deep throw but I was able to get it in on the one hop.”
Pennridge scored a pair of runs off Souderton starter Brian Gibbs, and with Post 255’s defense playing nearperfect ball, two runs were more than enough.
Post 255 took a 1-0 lead off Tyler Shoultes’ RBI single in the second and then Dave Tatoian launched a deep sacrififice flfly to center to drive in another run in the third.
Souderton, meanwhile, was forced to leave five runners stranded.
And in a preview of things to come, a crisp 1-5-4 double play from Lippincott to Ben Morina to Tatoian prevented Souderton from taking an early lead in the first, when Jason Smith (2-for-3) led off with a single and Stoltzfus drew a walk to put runners at first and second.
“We ran ourselves out of three or four innings,” Souderton coach Paul Meara said.
“We had some chances. We had runners on in each inning and didn’t do it.”
Lippincott was able to quickly settle down after some early, brief struggles.
“He was a couple pitches away from coming out in the first inning,” Wright said.
“He just could not find the plate.
“I think he might have seen me send a guy to the bullpen and he kind of buckled down a little bit.”
Lippincott allowed just one walk while striking out four.
He limited Post 234 to eight hits over his seven innings of work, and the defense did the rest.
“When you have pitchers throwing complete-game shutouts, the defense just gets behind him,” McLeod said. “It’s easy to get the job done.”
EAGLES NOTES
Both teams are back in action Wednesday, as Pennridge (6-2) hosts Quakertown and Souderton (5-8) is at Perkiomen.