H-T can’t clinch state title on first try

Winner-take-all final vs. Warrington noon today

The ball screamed off the bat of Gavin Moretski toward left-center field and looked destined for extra bases.

Zach Steinberg, charging down the center-field hill at Limeport Stadium, had something to say about that. Warrington’s center fielder somehow tracked down the ball and made the grab on the run to end the fifth inning Saturday afternoon.

It was the highlight of a big day defensively for Steinberg and a big part of the reason Warrington edged Hatfield-Towamencin 3-1 to force a winner-take-all final game in the Connie Mack state tournament.

“We just wanted to come out here and have some fun, we didn’t

really care what happened,” Steinberg, who attends Central Bucks South, said. “If they were putting it on the ground or in the air, we have to make the play. We haven’t been doing that a lot but we came out strong today.”

Warrington’s defensive effort and pitching spoiled a strong seven inning effort by Titans right-hander Nathan Brown. Brown limited Warrington to just five hits, but was undone by a second inning where Warrington struck for three runs.

The right-hander said he left the ball up in the zone during that inning, which the hard-swinging Warrington hitters were able to capitalize on.

“I knew I had to pound the zone, control my fast ball and keep it low,” Brown said. “I got away from it that one inning but I was able to get back, which allowed me to limit their runs.

“I just left it up in the zone and over the plate too much, which allowed them to make good contact. My mindset was just to do the best I could. This team, it didn’t come today, but I knew we had the offense to come back and I just wanted to keep it as close as I could to make that possible.”

Brown only struck out one batter but he issued just one walk and kept his team in the game even as the Titans’ offense couldn’t seem to get itself on track. Hatfield-Towamencin committed three errors in the first two innings, but Brown wasn’t too worried about them and knew if he stuck with it, the defense would have his back.

In fact, after getting out of the second inning, the pitcher told coach Mark Swanson he was going the rest of the way.

“He hasn’t gone seven (innings) in a while and even that one inning where he was a little shaky, he settled himself back in,” Swanson said. “Once he said I’ve got this, we wanted to give him the ball.”

As the lone unbeaten team left in the tournament at the start of play Saturday, Hatfield-Towamencin only had to play one game while Warrington had to face Doylestown at noon in an elimination game. After Doylestown rallied in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game, Warrington rallied to win 7-4 in nine innings.

Steinberg said he and his teammates were loose after that win and having narrowly lost to the Titans 8-7 on Friday night, they had plenty of confidence on the quick turnaround.

Warrington starter Michael Grispino, a rising junior at Archbishop Wood, was hit hard by HatfieldTowamencin in relief on Friday but was able to keep HT at bay in his four innings on Saturday. The lefthander gave up just one run on four hits, getting a couple big defensive plays and a lot of hard-hit balls right at fielders to do so.

Reliever Johny Kielar threw the final three innings, giving up two hits for Warrington.

“It’s the way the game goes, we hit the ball on the screws a couple times, especially (Jake) Drelick out of the leadoff spot,” Swanson said. “Three times he hit the ball hard and I don’t think the fielder had to move to go for his ball. I’ll take that kind of contact any game.”

Limeport’s center field is vast and also has the challenge of the upward slope, which Steinberg said is tough to climb at the start of every defensive half-inning. But it also adds some speed to a charging outfielder going down and it helped Steinberg make a couple of big plays.

In all, Steinberg had seven put-outs in center, including a sliding grab at the base of the hill in the fourth, also against Moretski. The HT third baseman had skied a ball into the air that seemed to be coming down in noman’s land before Steinberg somehow managed to get his glove under it on a sprawling play.

Coupled with his running catch deep in the gap an inning later, it gave Warrington plenty of energy in the must-win game.

“You 100 percent feel it after something like that,” Steinberg said. “Everyone’s all fired up and you’re ready to come out strong with the bats because those two plays were both with two outs.

“Coming down that hill, you get a lot of speed. After one or two games, I got used to it.”

The teams will face off one last time at noon on Sunday, with the winner winning the state title. Hatfield-Towamencin is the defending state champion but Warrington has had success against the Titans this year, winning two one-run regular season games and Saturday’s contest.

“Every time we’ve played them, it’s been a close game so I knew it was probably going to be a good one,” Brown said. “We’re confident heading into (Sunday), we’ll try to get it back together and get a win.”