Hohlfeld hurls one-hitter, leads Boyertown over Spring-Ford
UPPER PROVIDENCE >> Pat Hohlfeld is becoming someone the Spring-Ford baseball team dreads seeing on the mound.
In two regular-season meetings this spring, the Rams were unable to figure out the Bears’ junior righty. That was particularly true Wednesday, when Hohlfeld and his Boyertown mates laid a 4-0 defeat on them at Ram Stadium, in a matchup of the Pioneer Athletic Conference’s first- and second-place teams.
Hohlfeld turned in a workmanlike complete game, yielding just one hit and a walk. Spring-Ford managed just seven baserunners on the night — none after the fifth inning — and got only two as far as third base.
“He came at us in the third and fourth inning there,” Spring-Ford head coach Bruce Brobst said of the previous go-round at Bear Stadium, “and we had nothing. He found the strike zone tonight, and hit it.”
Hohlfeld rang up six strikeouts on the Rams, throwing 93 pitches on the night. With one hit batter on his pitching line, Hohlfeld and Boyertown (12-2) survived a three-error defense to firm up their lead in the PAC with four games remaining in the regular season.
“Coach (Matt) Danner made some good calls for pitches,” he said, “and my catcher, Ryan Weller, gave me a good target at the plate. My curve was dropping good … I primarily used it and my fastball.”
Hohlfeld worked with a 2-0 lead through the first six, before the Bears doubled their lead in the seventh. They collected 10 hits off Spring-Ford pitchers Jake Zoller and Patrick McMahon, in addition to working four of their five walks into the scoring mix.
“It was to our advantage to get this game in, and get the win,” Boyertown head coach Todd Moyer said, referencing less-than-ideal weather marked by a steady light rain over the last couple frames.
“It was a tough night to play baseball. Other than one inning, we played solid baseball.”
Coming into the night with a chance to pull even with Boyertown in the standings, Spring-Ford was unable to answer Hohlfeld’s solid pitching. Its best chances to get on the scoreboard ended with runners at third base in the seocnd and fourth.
Two Boyertown errors on successive at-bats in the second gave the Rams (10-4) hope with two outs, before pinch-runner Owen Gulati was out trying to steal second base. In the fourth,
Quinn McKenna (walk) got to third off a Conor Larkin bunt and Jeremiah Ndjali’s shot back to the mound, but Hohlfeld fanned Ethan Hellberg to get out of the tight spot.
“We have a team that’s young and inexperienced,” Brobst said. “Playing at this level, I was hoping for a bigger progression.”
Instead, Spring-Ford found itself unable to carry over from a productive showing the previous week — it beat Pope John Paul II, Phoenixville and Perkiomen Valley by a combined 32-7.
“We played three solid games last week,” Brobst noted, “but tonight we didn’t get it done.”
Boyertown got on the scoreboard in the first inning when Tyler Kreitz (walk) moved to third off Ryan Jacobs’ double and came home off Ben Longacre’s RBI groundout to second. In the third, the Bears doubled their lead when Jacobs (2-for-3) walked, advanced off Longacre (2-for-4) singling up the middle before Mitch Pinder and Cory Melchior — the latter forcing Jacobs in a bases-loaded situation.
The Bears’ seventh inning opened with Jacobs and Longacre hitting leadoff singles and moving up on Weller’s groundout to shortstop. Pinder’s hit up the middle was subsequently misplayed, enabling both to come home.
With that heftier lead, Hohlfeld put the Rams down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the frame. It ended up the third straight one-hitter for Boyertown.
“It’s always a good rivalry match between us and Spring-Ford,” he said.
And the winning outcome puts the Bears one step closer to its initial goal for the postseason.
“We’re trying to be the number one seed in the district and the PAC-10,” Moyer said. “Having a bye in the first (district) game is huge.”
