Nightmare inning trips up Hamburg in District 3 4A title bid
By Jeff Dewees
FREDERICKSBURG >> Hamburg’s hopes of winning a second District 3 title in four seasons went awry when Hawks coughed up their worst inning of baseball this spring.
Top-seeded East Pennsboro scored seven runs on five hits, with three Hawks errors contributing to the nightmare, in the bottom of the second inning Friday night to spearhead an 11-3 win in the Class 4A championship game, held at Wenger Field.
The third-seeded team in the 4A bracket, Hamburg fell short in a bid for its first district crown since 2016 — when the Hawks clubbed Palmyra 7-0 at Reading’s First Energy Stadium to capture the 3A title in the last season played under the old four-class system.
The Panthers sent 13 batters to the plate in the bottom of the second, an at-bat that took 33 minutes to complete and completely derailed Hamburg’s shot at gold. East Penn entered it trailing 2-1 and departed leading 8-2.
The Hawks (19-7) used three pitchers to navigate the combustible frame. Ethan Naftzinger, Friday’s starter, got the first batter on a groundball to shortstop but wouldn’t record a second. The Panthers would bat around before recording a second out. Hunter Shuey relieved Naftzinger after the seventh plate appearance of the at-bat; Shuey would book one out before giving way to Jared Sterner.
Hamburg’s usually-solid gloves tore laces Friday night — the Hawks committed three errors in the second, four for the game.
“Very uncharacteristic of Hamburg baseball today, especially that second inning,” Hawks head coach Nick Evangelista said. “That was not us. We don’t expect to beat anyone when you walk that many guys and commit that many errors.”
Naftzinger — a freshman bullpen catcher the last time Hamburg reached a district final — had difficulty locating and paid for it, against a club that came into the contest having scored a massive 229 runs in 23 games.
“We had some defensive errors but it can’t be all that because I was missing my locations a lot, too,” Naftzinger said. “My change-up was sailing high and I just couldn’t locate anything today. I feel had I located stuff better … it was just all-around bad.
“I don’t feel nervous when I pitch, so it wasn’t that. Maybe I wasn’t extending enough to get it lower in the zone.”
Though the Hawks had to settle for silver, it wasn’t a season-ending loss. By virtue of its 11-0, 5-inning pasting of Kennard-Dale in the 4A semifinals earlier in the week, Hamburg qualified for the PIAA playoffs. The Hawks will travel to Pittston Baseball field in Hughestown on Monday, for a first-rounder against Dallas, the District 2 champion. First pitch is slated for 4:30.
Naftzinger framed Friday’s disappointment in those terms.
“Out of 30 teams, we’re number two right now,” he said. “I feel disappointed in myself, in my teammates. We all had a bad game today. It’ll hurt for a day or two, but we have another game on Monday and we knew that coming in. The two things it affected was, what color medal we were getting and where we’re driving on Monday.”
Hamburg took a 2-1 lead in the top of the second when Tarik Feick laced a two-run single to center off East Penn’s Nick Embleton, the flame-throwing right-hander ticketed for Saint Joseph’s University. Feick was Hamburg’s most productive batter, later hitting a run-scoring double in the fourth to make it an 8-3 game and to account for all three runs scored.
Embleton settled in after a rough first inning, in which he walked a pair and had a third batter reach on a strikeout/wild pitch before retiring the side on a comebacker. It was one of his three K/WP outcomes, the final of which allowed the senior to record the rare four-strikeout fame, in the fourth. It was an indicator of how much his potent stuff was moving. He struck out 12 Hawks in all.
“My first inning was shaky and nerves were involved in that, I think, but my team picked me up right away with that (seven)-spot,” Embleton said. “I settle down and let the defense do the work. I knew I had a good amount of strikeouts, but I didn’t know how much.
“First inning, my fastball command was off but I had my curveball throughout the game. That’s the pitch I usually get my strikeouts on. I can throw it in any count and it’s my go-to pitch.”
East Penn (22-2) added solo runs in each of the fourth, fifth and sixth to put the issue to rest.
District 3 4A championship
at Wenger Field, Fredericksburg
East Pennsboro 11, Hamburg 3
H – 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 — 3 4 4
EP – 1 7 0 1 1 1 x — 11 9 0
WP: Nick Embleton LP: Ethan Naftzinger
H, Naftzinger (Hunter Shuey 2, Jared Sterner 2, Reece Adam 5) and Austin Gromlich; EP, Embleton (Zach Boyer 5) and Max Cathers
2B: H, Tarik Feick; EP, Boyer
