Neshaminy grinds out win over Souderton to stay undefeated

LOWER SALFORD >> Joe Kaleck thought his foot was hit by a pitch. But the umpiring crew ruled differently and the Neshaminy catcher had to go back to the batter’s box to continue facing Souderton pitcher Jordan Morales with Tuesday afternoon’s game tied 2-2 in the top of the fifth inning.

“After I got hit, I was pissed off because I wanted to get a runner up because I got Dalton (Turner) and RJ (Christie) behind me,” Kaleck said. “So I was fired up Me and Jordan, we were eying each other up, he was taking his time, I was calling time. It was a battle up there.”

One that ended in Kaleck’s favor when he delivered a shot to deep center field for a double.

“When he got 3-1 I was really looking for my pitch and I go I need to hit as far as I could,” Kaleck said. “And he left it right there so I jacked it.”

Kaleck’s courtesy runner Chris James advanced to third on an errant pick-off throw than scored on Turner’s RBI ground out to give Neshaminy back the lead after the Indians scored twice in the fourth to pull even.

“We’ve been doing that literally every single game where you have a team gets up on us we immediately take it back in the bottom half of the inning — for the most part I should say,” Redskins coach Dan Toner said. “And we knew with (Morales) on the mound we were going to have to definitely grind out, our guys grinding out at-bats today.”

In a matchup of Suburban One League conference leaders at Vic Alderfer Memorial Ball Park, the Redskins’ persistence and a few Souderton miscues helped Neshaminy stayed perfect on the season as the ‘Skins topped Souderton 4-2 in an SOL crossover that counts towards the District 1-6A playoff standings.

“Between dropped balls, misplayed balls, balks putting them in scoring position, it would have definitely been a different situation if we actually made our plays today,” Souderton coach Mike Childs said. “This is not characteristic of us, we were a little bit low energy, they were higher energy than us.”

Neshaminy (8-0, 5-0 SOL National) went up 1-0 in the top of the first after an error on Turner’s two-out fly ball to right. The ‘Skins doubled the lead in the fourth when Tommy Pease was hit by a pitch with two outs, went to second on a balk and scored on Josh Martoccio’s RBI single to left.

Morales leveled the contest 2-2 with his two-out, two-RBI double to right in the bottom of the fourth but Neshaminy answered in the top of the fifth then tacked on an insurance run in sixth.”

“Coming in we wanted to make them make plays,” said Kaleck, who finished 2-for-3 and reached base on all four of his plate appearances. “(Morales is) a great pitcher, obviously, it was great to be to put the ball in play. We had a lot of guys step up, some bloop hits got us some runs, great baserunning by like Chris James.

“It was really just a team win today, small ball and today we had to  come out and play small ball against a pitcher like that.”

Morales took the loss for Souderton (7-2, 5-0 SOL Continental) — which had its six-game win streak snapped — but the left-handed La Salle University commit still had a solid outing on the mound. He gave up three runs — one earned — on five hits, did not give up a walk, hit one batter and struck out five.

“How do you follow up 14 and 12 strikeouts? We can’t ask the kid to be Superman,” Childs said. “Did he strike 14 guys out — no. But did he do what we needed him to do — yeah and we didn’t play behind him. And we didn’t score runs for him either, that’s the other thing. We score some more runs, this whole game’s different.”

Neshaminy starting pitcher Dan Errigo earned the win, allowing two runs — both earned — on four hits in five innings. He walked one, hit one and struck out three.

Max Temple worked the final two scoreless innings to pick up the save, giving up one hit, an Andrew Curran single to leadoff the bottom of the seventh. Temple, however, got the next Big Red batter to hit into a 6-4-3 double play with the righty sealing the win with a ground out to the shortstop the following at-bat.

Both teams hosts conference games 3;45 p.m. Wednesday. Souderton takes on Quakertown while Neshaminy faces Pennsbury, which is also unbeaten in SOL National play.

“We knew coming into this game, there’s three undefeated teams left — it’s us, it’s Pennsbury and Souderton and we knew we needed to make a statement,” Toner said. “We have Pennsbury tomorrow right back up into this game, so we’re ready to go and we knew we could not overlook this game to get to the other one. This is just a crossover but it means a lot.”

“Obviously you don’t want to lose games but it’s better to lose one to learn some lessons,” Childs said. “And we got to learn some lessons and we got to be ready. And tomorrow’s Quakertown, we got to be ready, back to a league game again. Today would have been tonight, playoff-points wise it would have been real nice but we got to be ready for Quakertown tomorrow which is a league game and they’re not going to go down without a fight also.”

Kaleck kept the top of the first going with his two-out infield single. James stole second then scored due to the error on Turner’s fly ball to right.

“Right away, we were like we should of been out of the inning, but it happens and we just got to battle back,” Childs said. “I think we hung our heads too early in the game even with one run.”

Neshaminy used another two-out rally to make it 2-0 in the top of the fourth. Pease took a pitch off his helmet but remained in the game and went to reach second on a balk. Martoccio proceeded to drop a single into left to bring home Pease.

Jacob Horton led off the Souderton half of the fourth with a single down the third-base line. Moses Clemens was hit by a pitch to put two on with no outs. A Frank Pollock sacrifice bunt put runners on second and third. Errigo struck out the next batter, but Morales doubled to deep right to bring both runners home to tie the game.

“Most guys ask the question, ‘Do we DH for him?’ but he’s a hard out,” said Childs of Morales. “And every time he does hit the ball, couple league he hit the ball hard right at somebody, so it’s hard for me to take him out of the lineup. And he’s probably one of our best outfielders along with one of our fastest guys.”

After Turner’s RBI ground out put the ‘Skins back up 3-2, Neshaminy plated its fourth run the sixth. Matt Yauger led off with a single, went to second on Tyler Jones’ sacrifice bunt then scored on Pease’s single to left — Pease throw out at second on the play.