Owen J. Roberts fights off Boyertown, tops Bears 4-3
BUCKTOWN >> In 1991, the Owen J. Roberts baseball team won a Pioneer Athletic Conference championship for the first time in program history.
A quarter-century later, members of that landmark squad were honored by the district prior to Friday’s game with Boyertown. Following the pre-game ceremony, the current pack of Wildcats — a crew very much in the hunt for this year’s PAC title — added more life to its championship designs with a 4-3 win over the Bears.
Scoring twice in the bottom of the fourth inning, Roberts (8-2) upped its early 2-1 lead to 4-1. That cushion was endangered when Boyertown (8-2) scored twice in its half of the sixth, but the visitors were denied a comeback victory by Nate Tomlin’s shutdown relief pitching and timely stops by the defense.
“I was happy with the way Nate came in and shut them down,” OJR head coach Greg Gilbert said afterward. “But it’s about being consistent. We talked about it after the game … we have to be consistent. We can’t play just one good game a week.”
The rematch between two of the three PAC teams presently sharing first place — Perkiomen Valley also sports an 8-2 record — was not considered by either head coach to be a model of sparkling play. Boyertown skipper Todd Moyer pointed to his team’s inability to play fundamentally, when it was at bat, as something that prevented the Bears from firming up their pre-game perch of first place in the standings.
“We hit too many fly balls,” he said. “We didn’t roll the ball, which we needed to do.”
The presence of Owen J. Roberts’ 1991 ball team, which compiled an 18-2 record and went two games into the District 1 Class AAA playoffs that year, offered the 2016 team a measure of insight, though the players weren’t able to interface with the program’s first PAC champs.
“We talked about it,” Gilbert said. “It was a chance to see how important that team was.”
About a dozen of the old-timers and other team members were brought out to the infield after being introduced. The final person to come out was Dennis McKernan, the head coach of that title squad.
“It was very nice,” the 70-year-old McKernan, whose managerial tenure began in the spring of 1981, said while meeting and greeting with many of the fans who turned out for the game.
Among the joyful memories he had from that memorable season, McKernan noted how the team’s players responded to the loss of his son and a team member, Jamie, in an auto accident during that spring.
“They were close before that, and they were even closer after it,” he recalled. “Bobby Sutton wrote on a blackboard, ‘The best is here this year.’
“The kids carried me through the year. They had a little inner reason to perform like they did. They were unselfish before, and after.”
OJR bunched four hits off Boyertown starting pitcher Andrew Bauer in the first, singles by Joe Zgleszewski (3-for-4, two doubles) and Alex Condello driving in the runs. The Bears got one back in the second, a Quinn Mason single plating Anthony Rota.
But in the fourth, Roberts gave its own starting pitcher (Corey Hennessey) some breathing room off a C.J. Weaver double and Zgleszewski’s groundout to shortstop.
“We did some things right,” Gilbert admitted, “but I think both teams could look at the game and say they could have played better.”
The Bears’ two-run sixth sounded the end for Hennessey’s night, though he was able to get the winning decision. John DeMartino and Mitch Peers singled in Tom Randall (courtesy runner for Ryan Weller) and Anthony Rota, who moved into scoring position off Cory Melchior’s bunt along the first-base side.
DeMartino and Mason, however, were subsequently erased on the basepaths for the final outs of the inning. Boyertown went down 1-2-3 in the eighth, the game-ender Zgleszewski throwing to Bobby Walker at second on Ben Longacre’s attempted steal.
“They made us make plays. We didn’t make them make plays,” Moyer noted.
NOTES >> Players from the 1991 Owen J. Roberts team who turned out for the honors ceremony were Steve DePaul, Brad Wiley, Mike Pence, Dave Detweiler, Brian Errington, Tim Kanavy, Jeff Zancosky, Sutton, Matt Skokowski and Israel Soto. Another team member absent from the ceremony (Bill Greenwood) was represented by his father, Bill Sr. … McKernan taught special needs students in the OJR district for 41 years. He also coached the high school boys basketball team up to the 1980-81 season. … The 1991 Wildcats’ postseason was marked by a 4-2 win over Central Bucks East in its first game followed by a 7-4 loss to Sun Valley.
