It feels like summer again for local players
Area teams working their way back
The summer had finally arrived for some area baseball players.
“It’s awesome. I didn’t think we’d come back this season but it was nice to be back,” said Liam Reilly, a rising sophomore at La Salle College High School who was playing for Fort Washington Connie Mack Thursday night.
Reilly and his Commodore teammates were at Miles Park in Plymouth Meeting to take on rival Plymouth-Whitemarsh.
“It’s nice to play baseball again,” Reilly said, “obviously under weird circumstances, but it’s nice.”
Social-distancing guidelines were in effect, but it was a nice turnout at Miles Park.
Fans and lawn chairs dotted the first- and third-base lines, and there was a big crowd behind the backstop.
It was 70-degree weather and a perfect night for baseball.
It couldn’t have come any sooner.
Seeing their spring season wiped out due to the coronavirus pandemic, area players were a bit eager to get back out there again and show what they can do.
Upper Moreland took the diamond on Tuesday night, squaring off against Doylestown.
“We were off for a while and our season got cancelled,” Upper Moreland third baseman Justin Richmond said. “So I’m glad to get some baseball in here.
“I just love to play baseball,” Richmond went on to say. “I’m glad to get out here with my teammates.”
Richmond is a rising junior at Upper Dublin. During the shutdown, he said he “worked out pretty much every day, tried to get outside to throw, hit and field.”
Needless to say, there was some rust to work off for every
body this week.
Upper Moreland and Doylestown combined for five errors, helping to open the door to a total of 17 runs in a shootout — Upper Moreland scratched out the 9-8 win. The game between Fort Washington and Doylestown was similar. There were 14 runs scored — the Commodores came away with a 10-4 victory — and only nine combined hits.
But all that seemed secondary.
Players like Richmond (double, two runs, three RBI) and Reilly (1-for-1, 2 BB, 2 R, 3 RBI) had some big moments for their respective squads this week.
“I had a little bit of trouble at first, seeing live pitching again,” Reilly said, “but I feel like I’m back in the groove. And it’s nice to be back out here with my teammates.”