Christopher Dock uses pair of 4-run innings to roll past Jenkintown

JENKINTOWN >> With both Jenkintown and Christopher Dock entering Thursday afternoon’s contest leading and undefeated in their respective divisions in the Bicentennial Athletic League, the game on paper figured to be a close contest.

Jenkintown simply was not sharp enough to hang with the Pioneers, as a handful of Drake errors and some timely hits from Dock led to 9-1 win for the Pioneers.

“They’re a good team and if you give a good team some extra outs they’ll take advantage,” Jenkintown coach George Vafiadis said. “We hit the ball OK. We only had (five) strikeouts all game. We didn’t hit it hard. It is what it is, the pitcher didn’t have is best stuff.”

Throughout the day, Dock was getting production up and down its lineup resulting in a pair of four-run innings in the second and fourth. The innings were highlighted by RBI hits from Tyler Alderfer, Rashid Saint-Fleur, Andrew Walters, Nolan Bolton and Trey France. The five made up the 2-6 hitters in the lineup.

“We concentrate on (the) mental game,” Dock coach Ed Melendez said. “Make the guys a little more conscientious in the box and swing at good pitches. So we let the guy pitch and we make good swings out of it.”

If there was one critique that could made of Dock’s performance Thursday it would be with its base running. The Pioneers made a couple mistakes in the base paths that in a closer game might have proven more costly with one of its blunders coming in the sixth that likely cost them another run.

“We understand the importance of at least learning something from those mistakes,” Melendez said. “In three or four particularly situations in this game we need to address the base running.”

Offensively for Jenkintown, it struggled to string hits together as Dock pitcher David Keller kept a pretty solid Drakes lineup off balance for much of the day as he earned the complete game victory. Jenkintown’s lone run came in the fourth inning when John Contoudis single-handedly manufactured a run.

Keller finished Thursday’s game allowing seven hits, six of them coming in two innings, one run, no walks and five strikeouts.

There is really no way to explain Jenkintown’s performance other than it just laid a dud. It’s certainly no time to panic for the Drakes. They still sit in the drivers seat in the BAL Constitution and a postseason appearance looks way more likely than not.