Hohlfeld pitches Boyertown past Perk Valley, into states

GRATERFORD >> Pat Hohlfeld has had Perkiomen Valley’s number all season.

Just over a week after pitching Boyertown to the Pioneer Athletic Conference title against Perkiomen Valley, the junior right-hander was similarly dominant in securing the Bears a trip to the PIAA-AAAA playoffs with a 5-4 win over the Vikings on Friday afternoon.

“I was nervous coming into this one,” said Hohfeld, who is now 2-1 against PV this season. “I was thinking that they’d start to catch on and know what to expect from me. They had a lot of flare hits, but for the most part I was comfortable.”

Through six innings, Hohlfeld held Perk Valley to just six hits before being tagged for three more and was then pulled in the bottom of the seventh with a 5-1 lead.

“He works quickly on the mound, which takes some time for our guys to adjust to,” said Perkiomen Valley head coach Ryan Hinkle. “He was mixing up his speeds really well and was able to spin his curveball for strikes pretty consistently.”

Behind Hohlfeld, No. 5 Boyertown secured a trip to the state playoffs after falling in the quarterfinals at districts last season. The Bears will face No. 17 Pennridge — 13-9 winners over Marple Newtown — on Tuesday.

The fourth-seeded Vikings fall to district playbacks, where they’ll take on Marple Newtown on Tuesday.

A series of errors and base-running blunders ended up costing Perk Valley.

In the bottom of the second inning with Ryan McCourt and Zach Alcott on second and third, Mark Ott rolled one back to the mound. McCourt looked to advance to third, while Alcott stayed put on the third-base bag. After McCourt was tug out, Alcott was caught trying to take home for a 1-6-5-2 double-play.

Two innings later, McCourt reached base safely on an error at second, but the PV runner from third was tug out trying to score on the play.

“We ran ourselves out of a lot of innings,” said Hinkle, “and defensively, I think we could have shored things up. It should have never had to come down to that rally in the last inning to begin with. We should have been able to tack on more runs throughout.”

After Hohlfeld ran into trouble in the seventh, junior Grant Fronheiser came on to close it out with the bases loaded and no outs.

“I don’t know that he’s been in that situation before,” said Boyertown skipper Todd Moyer. “He’s thrown a lot of JV innings to hopefully get ready for a situation like that, but JV hitters aren’t varsity hitters. He faced some really good (Perk Valley) hitters and did a great job.”

After a hit-batter to open his outing, Fronheiser forced a potential double-play ball to short that was misplayed on the throw at second and led to two more runners crossing. The right-hander then got the final two batters to ground out to end it.

Seth Endy finished 3-for-3 with a run scored while Mitch Pinder (RBI), Ben Longacre (double, run scored) and Mike Raineri (RBI-double, run scored) each finished with two hits.

Courtesy runner Tom Randall scored the eventual game-winning run in the top of the third inning. Standing on third, Randall stole home after Jordan Shustack got himself in a run-down between first and second, allowing Randall to advance and slide in safe.

“We had some clutch at-bats, which we hadn’t done very often,” said Moyer. “We’re starting to believe we can win some baseball games. The guys are starting to believe that we can do something here. Right now we’re in the district semifinal. That’s a pretty big deal.”

Freshman Tyler Strechay took the loss for PV, yielding five runs (four earned) across three innings before giving way to Paul Mudrick who scattered five hits in four innings of relief.

Sean Moriarity finished 3-for-4 out of the lead-off spot with two runs scored while Tyson and McCourt each knocked a double.

Inside the home dugout, Hinkle and the Vikings know the road ahead won’t be easy as they gear up for playbacks.

With a win over Marple Newtown, the Vikings could potentially find themselves up against a familiar foe in Spring-Ford for a fourth time this season. Only this time, it will be for a spot at states.

“We’ve got to try and get into states the hard way now,” said Hinkle. “The next time we lose, our season is officially over. That’s got to be our mentality from here on out. We’ve got to bring everything we’ve got the rest of the way.”

NOTES >> Perkiomen Valley turned two double plays on defense while Boyertown had one. …The Bears defeated Perkiomen Valley 9-0 in the second round of districts last season.