Perkiomen School beats Quakertown for Baker’s 500th win

PENNSBURG >> The achievement was a long time coming … on several counts.

Chalking up 499 victories was something Ken Baker worked at for three decades. In its own way, the interval to the milestone 500th win was lengthier than Perkiomen School’s venerable head coach would have wanted to endure.

“Our last chance to do it was the last game of 2019,” Baker noted, the last time the Panthers were able to take the field due to the 2020 season being cancelled by the coronavirus pandemic. “Everybody was wondering when it was going to happen.”

As such, a measure of relief accompanied the joy the baseball program and school administrators felt Friday when they opened the 2021 campaign by hosting Quakertown. The mark was achieved with an 11-7 victory over the Bucks County-based Panthers, one of the fashion characteristic of countless Perkiomen games in its vaunted history.

A superlative long-relief performance by pitcher Shane Baird coupled with a late-but-welcome comeback to give Baker the distinction of being only the third high-school baseball coach in Pennsylvania to reach the mark. Perkiomen erased a three-run deficit at the start by scoring a combined seven runs in its second and third at-bat, then put up four more the next two times at bat after Quakertown cut the deficit to 7-6 midway through the fourth.

“So it was two years coming,” Baker said. “If you hang around long enough, something is going to happen.”

The game’s start did not foretell a happy ending, Quakertown seeing three of its first five batters reach base after being hit by pitches with a walk and single mixed in. Full bases and a 1-0 deficit, with only one out logged in the span, prompted Perkiomen to call on Baird to put the brakes on the visitors’ offense.

It proved a wise move. Baird went the rest of the way scattering eight hits and three walks while striking out six. And even when Quakertown got back-to-back hits to start the seventh, Baird was every bit determined to finish out the near-complete game.

“The thing I had to do was play my game, use the people around me,” he said. “I got out of the first inning strong and didn’t let emotions get in the way.”

Perkiomen’s outing was aided by the top four batters in its lineup — Chris Catania, Isaac Pena (2-for-5), Zach Smith, T.D. Khela — each driving in pairs of runs. Defensively, the Panthers’ support of Baird was highlighted by a bang-bang double play by first-baseman Garrett Knowles in the third.

With one out and Quakertown’s Ethan Beil on first, Knowles pulled in a hard shot from starting pitcher Trevor Hurst. He then forced Beil, well on his way to second on the play, at first to get the inspiring double-out.

“I kind of stepped toward it, then defended my place,” Knowles said. “It was mostly protection.”

“Things like that make a huge difference,” Baker added. “We did a lot on the basepaths, too, with our speed.”

The Panthers hustled their way to seven stolen bases and got to first base on several infield hits. Seven of the 10 players in their lineup collected hits, the longest Catania’s two-run triple in the third and Smith’s two-RBI double two batters later.

“I said to the guys while we were cleaning up, this was a ‘Baker win’,” Knowles said. “Go down and get back up.”

On the mound, Baird made a key adjustment that contributed to his solid relief performance.

“Usually, I go with a fastball, curveball and splitter,” he said. “But the splitter was slipping off my hands, so I told the catcher (Tony Holden) to call for my fastball inside and outside.”

“I was really pleased with the way Shane came in in a tough situation,” Baker noted. “When I brought him in, I said ‘Don’t worry, just slow down the damage’. He was huge.”

“Being new to the program, I was concerned. I didn’t want him to burn himself out. But he wanted to finish; he said he felt strong.”

During his tenure at Perkiomen, Baker saw 61 of his players go on to play at the collegiate level, with another seven drafted by the pros. The numbers are even more commendable considering Baker himself never played the game and became head of the Perkiomen program in an unusual circumstance.

“Brian Thomas (his predecessor) left in 1990,” he explained. “As the athletic director, I looked around for a replacement and saw it was me.”

Being one win away from 500 was a fact with which the Perkiomen players were very cognizant. But Baird, for one, didn’t was to be overly focused on it.

“I wanted to not have it fully distract me,” he said. “It was definitely an honor to be part of it.”

NOTES >> Cesar Lopez’ RBI single to right upped Perkiomen’s lead to 8-6 in the bottom of the fourth. The three-run fifth was keyed by Khela’s two-run single. … Tyler Woodman emerged as Quakertown’s top hitter, his 3-for-3 effort highlighted by a two-run homer to right in the fourth. He also doubled in the sixth. … The visitors used three pitchers on the day, Vi. Pellegrini coming on in the third to replace Hurst and Anthony Rostwick working the final three.