Gilvary, CB West shut out Pennridge to snap 6-game skid

PERKASIE >> Central Bucks West’s Brian Gilvary thought for a moment his bid at shutout was sailing away out to left field.

With two outs and a runner on in the bottom of the seventh inning, Pennridge’s Hayden Maltby belted a ball into deep left, giving the Rams a chance to score their first run of Tuesday afternoon’s contest.

But while the Bucks held a six-run comfortable lead, they kept hustling, relayed the throw to the plate for the final out to preserve Gilvary’s scoreless outing and give the West baseball team a 6-0 Suburban One League Continental Conference win at Second Street Park.

“As the play was going through, I saw that we actually had a shot at him,” Gilvary said. “And I was standing behind the plate watching them, I’m like ‘Oh my God we’re going to get him.”

The right-hander threw the Bucks’ first shutout since 2016 while West (6-9, 3-6 conference) scored all six of their runs with two outs to put and end to its six-game losing streak.

“We were 5-3 and our eyes started to get a little big, like ‘Hey all right,’ and then we ran into three really tough games,” CB West coach Brian Weaver said. “We’ve just been struggling to slam the doors since then. So today it was good that we got up early and continued to add a (runs in a) couple of innings.”

The Bucks took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on Luke Nitschke’s RBI single while Gilvary worked out of a first and third, no-out jam in the bottom of the inning. West began to pull away with a three-run fifth then tacked on two more in the seventh on Matt McCarthy’s two-RBI double to left.

“Brian Gilvary who threw today has been really, really great and we’ve had a tendency to when they go out and throw a great inning we come back and go ‘All right, let’s go get ‘em,’ and then we go down 1-2-3,” Weaver said. “So today the fact that we got guys on even with two outs, we moved them over and we got them in was a point of emphasis the last couple of days.”

McCarthy was 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored, Bill McGinnis went 2-for-3 with a run scored while Ryan Rudek collected two RBIs and scored twice for the Bucks.

Pennridge (4-10, 0-8) finished with eight hits of Gilvary but were shutout for the third time this season. Raymond Knight and Timmy Mastrogiovanni both went 2-for-3 for the Rams, who lost their second straight.

“We got two wins last week, we got a Palisades win and then we beat William Tennent which is our crossover game which is a good week since we hadn’t won too many games and we kind of thought we were doing some things a little bit better,” Pennridge coach Tom Nuneviller said. “But it’s a tough league and no one’s going to feel sorry for us, that’s for sure.

“And you’ve got to make your own breaks, somebody’s got to step and make a hit, get a hit, be an aggressive baserunner, get an extra base, make some defensive plays.”

Gilvary struck out three batters — one each in the last three innings — and did not allow a walk as the righty gave West its first shutout win since topping Souderton 1-0 on May 16, 2016.

“Coach called the location, I just had to hit the location,” Gilvary said. “Wasn’t trying to throw it by anyone, I wasn’t trying to speed by anyone, just hitting the location was really the key.”

Pennridge starting pitcher Jon Nase took the loss, giving up just one run before getting into trouble in the fifth. The righty allowed four runs — all earned — on six hits, walked one and struck out three in five innings on the mound.

“He does a nice job changing speeds,” said Nuneviller of Nase. “He’s much more confident this year. At the end of last year, he said he wanted to play college baseball, I said ‘Hey, you need to get yourself into a little bit better shape,’ He ended up, I think he lost 40 pounds since last season, so he took that heart and he’s done a really nice job for us this season. Just changing speeds and confidence out there in his whole game.”

CB West next plays Wednesday hosting Truman at 3:45 p.m., the Bucks entering the SOL crossover contest 25th in the District 1-6A rankings with 20 making the postseason field.

“The nice thing is, there’s zero pressure on us,” Weaver said. “I think if you look at us in the scorebook coming into the season, you don’t see us as being a contender really. And we get hot early and then we’re like, ‘Oh, maybe this is the year,’ and then we cool off and so now again the pressure’s entirely off of us. We just keep saying great we beat Pennridge today it’s the first I don’t know when the last time West shut anybody out was. So today we say great now the Pennridge game is done. The Truman game’s tomorrow.

“Like one game as a time is really cliche but we don’t have the luxury is saying we have to win five, we have to say win the game in front of us.”

Pennridge is home Thursday for an SOL Continental contest against Central Bucks South at 3:30 p.m.

The Rams had a chance to answer’s West run in the top of the first inning when Paul Croyle started the bottom of the frame reaching on an error while Jason Petrik singled to right center, putting runners on the corners with no outs. But Gilvary wiggled out of the threat with a fly out to the shortstop, a force out at second on a fielder’s choice and a ground out to third.

“That kind of put us behind the eight ball right from the start,” Nuneviller said. “They scored one and we could of battled right back there and tied it up. And the way we’ve been going when things don’t go our way, some of us we kind of are like we’re not going to able to come back right now.”

In the bottom of the sixth, Pennridge again put runners on the corners after consecutive two-out singles from Knight and Jimmy Petrik. West thought it was out of the inning on a ground out, but after a meeting of the officials the ball was ruled foul off the batter’s foot. The Rams, however, could not capitalize on the second chance with a fly out to center stranding the pair on the basepaths.

“My changeup was feeling really good today,” Gilvary said. “Yeah, I got a lot of guys to hit grounders on that which is good.”

After holding a 1-0 lead through four innings, West finally gave itself some room in the fifth. With two outs and Sam Tierney on first after his fielder’s choice, Jack Fileppo doubled to left center, putting runners on second and third. Rudek followed with a single to center to score both Tierney and Fileppo. Rudek stole second then came home to make it 4-0 when Rhys Nicholas bashed a double to deep left center.

In the top of the seventh, back-to-back two-out walks loaded the bases for McCarthy, who ripped a double to left to plate two runs for a 6-0 advantage.

CENTRAL BUCKS WEST 6, PENNRIDGE 0
Central Bucks West         100 030 2 — 6 8 2
Pennridge           000 000 0 — 0 8 0
WP: Brian Gilvary 7 IP 8 H 0 R 0 ER 0 BB 3 SO.
LP: Jon Nase 5 IP 6 H 4 R 4 ER 1 BB 3 SO.
2B: CBW-Jack Fileppo, Matt McCarthy, Rhys Nicholas; P-Hayden Maltby.
Central Bucks West: Matt McCarthy 2-4, 2 RBI, R; Bill McGinnis 2-3, R; Ryan Rudek 2 RBI, 2 R.
Pennridge: Raymond Knight 2-3; Timmy Mastrogiovanni 2-3.