Knechel’s home run helps Souderton rally past Lansdale Catholic

LOWER SALFORD >> After the Indians clawed their way back to even ground, one mighty swing from Dan Knechel put them in front for good.

“When I first hit that, I actually thought it was a little too high,” Knechel said of his sixth-inning shot to left. “I didn’t think it was gonna get out. I was surprised by it.”

Souderton Area’s cleanup hitter got a hold of a high fastball and — some 330 feet or so later — it sailed over the left-field fence at Vic Alderfer Field, breaking a 5-5 tie and sending the Indians on their way to an 8-5 comeback win over area rival Lansdale Catholic.

“We kind of came out of the gate slow,” Knechel said, “but we started picking it up, started coming together, started hitting the ball.

“It’s good for the team to come together and get another win — back-to-back, after a tough one yesterday (a 2-0 win over Central Bucks South).”

Left-hander Cole Niles, coming on in the fifth, got the win for Big Red, throwing two shutout innings as the Indians pushed ahead. Knechel, meanwhile, continued his hot streak, his 2-for-2, two-RBI performance helping to lift the Indians to 4-3 on the season.

“Knechel had a heck of a week this week. I can’t say enough about that kid. Awesome,” Big Red coach Mike Childs said. “We got behind in a hole, 5-0, but the guys battled back.”

The Indians started all back-ups in the non-league contest, bringing their starters in as the game went on.
Lansdale Catholic, also shuffling its lineup a bit and getting freshman Sean Duffy some time on the mound, had jumped out to a 5-0 lead by the fourth.

Ryan McSorley drew a bases-loaded walk in the first and Pat McDonald followed that up with a two-run single to make it 3-0 in the first. McSorley, who had a pair of hits, belted a towering triple to left to lead off the third and came home on a groundout by McDonald.

Duffy reached on an error to start the fourth, coming in to score on a groundout by James Scarcelli, pushing the Crusader lead to 5-0.

“It was a very good start. We had them on the ropes a little bit,” LC coach Dave Scott said, “but we let them back in with some pretty poor defensive plays.”

Three errors in the bottom of the fourth proved costly for LC, as Souderton cut the margin to 5-4. Key for Big Red was a double to the fence in left by Knechel, previewing what he would do in the sixth.

An RBI single by Luke Barnum tied the game at five apiece in the fifth, and after Knechel’s solo home run off Duffy, Matt Reinert and Jack Despain drew back-to-back walks and later came around to score on LC’s sixth error of the contest.

With right-hander Brandon Glass closing things down for Souderton in the seventh, McDonald hit a two-out single to keep the Crusaders alive, but Glass got E.J. McQuillen to ground out to end it.

“I’m pretty proud of my guys. Non-league game today, so we had some guys out of position,” Scott said. “It’s one of those games where you work on some things and get some guys in that haven’t played.

“We still have a bunch of things to work on. We have to clean some things up defensively. We have a couple of guys that are out of sync at the plate right now and we’re just gonna keep working with them, get them ready to go for Monday — we have a pretty important (Philadelphia Catholic League) game (at home against Archbishop Carroll).”

Souderton also gets back to league play next week, hosting rival North Penn Tuesday in a Suburban One League Continental Conference clash.
“We’re playing very well right now,” Knechel said of Big Red, who have won four of five, “coming together as a team.”