Kline hurls Boyertown past Council Rock South into District 1-6A second round
BOYERTOWN >> The Boyertown baseball team might have preferred to start out the District 1-6A playoffs with a bye. That didn’t happen as the Bears missed out on that by one spot in the power rankings. But opening up at home and getting a chance to get out on the field after a week layoff wasn’t a bad deal either.
And the Bears took advantage of the situation with an 8-2 win over Council Rock South Monday at Bear Stadium and advanced to the round of 16 Wednesday at 4 p.m. at Methacton.
Nolan Kline threw two-hit shutout ball for six innings for 13th-seeded Boyertown (15-6) and Chris Davis drilled a three-run double during a seven-run fourth that broke a 0-0 tie. The season came to an end for the 20th-seeded Golden Hawks (12-8).
“Good to start off at home,” said senior right-hander Kline, who walked two and struck out five. “Get a win under our belt and get some action after a week off.”
“Once we found out we had a game Monday, we came out and did our job and moved on one day at a time,” added senior shortstop and leadoff hitter Davis.
Kline (5-3) gave up a pop single to center to start the game and struggled with his curveball early, but still managed to retire the next 11 batters in a row.
“I was just trying to find the strike zone,” said Kline. “My defense backed me up. Got to thank them. I was just locating pitches, trying to stay in the strike zone and keep it low and get groundballs.”
“Once he settled down, he was very tough,” said Bear coach Todd Moyer. “He’s a good pitcher, but he needs to have the early curveball to be effective.”
Meanwhile, Jake Barder shut Boyertown down on two singles through the first three frames. But Billy Coleman led off the Bear fourth with a walk. Then Caleb Harrison, Trey Yesavage and Cole Hertzler singled with one out to produce two runs, Sean Sutterby and Kline walked, Davis lined a double to left to clear the bases and Derick Basile singled to make it 7-0.
“The offense really came out and helped me out,” said Kline, who went 2-for-2. “Big thanks to them. We’ve been hibtting the ball, moving runners, scoring runs.”
“Just doing a line drive, doing my job,” said Davis. “Moving runners, getting a pitch I like and putting the barrel on it.”
The Bears played errorless defense and turned a big 6-4-3 double play to end the fifth after the Golden Hawks threatened to start a rally with two on and a 2-0 count on the batter.
“That was a big inning for us,” said Moyer. “We got that double play. We really needed that double play. I told (Kline) he was going to throw one pitch and get us out of the inning and he threw two.”
Kline threw a perfect sixth and finished the day with just 74 pitches.
“We knew he was going to come out and throw strikes and give us a big game,” said Davis.
“It was a dogfight until the fourth,” said CR South coach Ted Kirner. “It started with a leadoff walk and they got some timely hits. Kline did a very good job of getting ahead of our hitters. That’s exactly what you need in the playoffs.”
The Golden Hawks had gotten off to an 0-3 start in the Suburban One National Division and Kirner was pleased with the way they kept battling.
“I think resilience is the call for us,” he added. “They were 8-6 in the league. They could have packed it in. No regrets, heads held high.”
Next, the Bears will take on the fourth-seeded Warriors, who enjoyed a bye on Monday and defeated the Bears 1-0 and 6-4 during the Pioneer Athletic Conference regular season.
“It’s nice to get a bye, but we had enough time off,” said Moyer. “Hopefully this will translate to Wednesday and we can get to the state tournament.”
“We’ll take anybody we get,” said Davis, who had no preference in playing a familiar foe or an unknown one. “We’ve got to go out every game knowing we have the confidence to win.”
