Upper Dublin tops Abington, runs win streak to eight games
UPPER DUBLIN >> Seven games into the season, Upper Dublin baseball may have been wearing the same uniform, but the Cardinals weren’t yet a team.
A lack of chemistry and plenty of mistakes led to a winless start and a much-needed reset. The Cardinals came together, held each other to task, cut down on the errors and started winning games. Thursday, UD came up against an Abington team on winning run of its own in a test for both sides.
Upper Dublin stayed hot, plating eight runs in the deciding inning as the Cardinals won their eighth straight 10-0 in five innings over Abington, snapping the Ghosts’ six-game win streak.
“We just got it together, after losing seven in a row, we came together and said we had nothing to lose,” Cardinals shortstop Nick Lombardo said. “We’re playing as hard as we can, we’re playing for each other, we don’t care as much about the outcome as long as we’re playing for each other.
“The chemistry wasn’t there but now it is, we’re confident and we’re ready to keep winning.”
Lombardo was a catalyst for UD (8-7, 1-5 SOL Liberty), going 3-for-3 with two doubles and the game-ending single in the bottom of the fifth. He was also in the middle of a couple crucial early defensive plays that backed up starting pitcher David Sharp.
Sharp, who threw the complete game on 94 pitches, didn’t have his best stuff early on and walked the first two batters of the game. He rebounded by getting a 4-6-3 double play and ground ball to third to end that threat and an inning later, a relay throw from right field got Abington (8-5, 3-3 SOL Liberty) catcher Alex Dardaris trying to stretch a leadoff double into a triple.
The lefty would also work out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth with a ground ball to third base thanks to a clean effort from the fielders behind him.
“The first time against them, we felt like we let one get away from us and they did a good job but today, we came ready to play,” UD coach Ed Wall said. “Sharp was money in the right spots, he kept us in the game getting some big outs, some really big strikeouts to end innings.
“I love our mojo we’ve got going, our boys are feeling it and we played clean. That’s what we didn’t do the first half of this season.”
Before breaking the game open in the fifth, the Cardinals’ offensive plan was simple. Lombardo would get on base, then Ethan Madnick would bring him home.
Lombardo ripped a one-out double in the bottom of the first, then scored when Madnick hit a two-out ball into the hole at second base, denying Abington a clean play and allowing the shortstop to come in from second. In the third, a pitch hit Lombardo to put him on with one out and Madnick came through with a two-out RBI triple off hard-throwing Abington starter Anthony Ehly.
“We just looked to attack the fastball,” Madnick, the Cardinals’ left fielder, said. “Put your foot down early and drive the baseball, you don’t have to do too much with it and hope it lands.”
Madnick, who walked and scored a run in the fifth to go with his two RBI hits, said the early runs were important in getting the team’s confidence up for the breakout inning. Wall agreed, noting not only the value of saving runs, but putting a couple up on a quality hurle.
“Ehly’s a beast out there so to get some runs off him was huge,” Wall said.
Lombardo led off the fifth with his second double of the afternoon, setting the table for an eight-run frame. Tristan Cairnes worked a walk that chased Ehly from the game, but Madnick then drew a walk to load the bases with no outs on the board.
Tyle Lizell delivered with a two-run single and after a groundout, Madnick made a great slide on a throw home off a fielder’s choice. Jared Levis hit an RBI single to give UD a 6-0 lead and a walk from No. 9 hitter Brendan O’Brien again loaded the bases.
“We haven’t been giving the other team any freebies, so walks and errors,” Madnick said. “Last time we played them, I think we had six errors and a bunch of walks. We had a couple walks today but no errors, ever since we got that cleaned up and the bats got going, we felt like we couldn’t lose.”
Leadoff hitter Kyle Rizzo, who was 0-for-3 to that point, bombed a bases-clearing double to left field, scoring three and putting the Cardinals a run away from their eighth straight win. Lombardo would give it to them, pushing a single through the second base gap that scored Rizzo.
The loss snapped Abington’s six-game win streak, but the Ghosts are still 8-3 in games that count toward the District 1 6A playoff bracket.
Upper Dublin improved to 7-5 in qualifying games for the District 1 5A tournament and after going 0-5 their first time through the SOL Liberty, want to flip the script the second time around.
“We know what to expect the second time around,” Lombardo said. “The first time, we were a little iffy and didn’t have it together but this time, we’re ready to go.”
“It shows us we can hang with any of these teams,” Madnick said. “We get to see them again and now we know what we have to do to turn them into wins and hopefully keep adding onto our streak.”
UPPER DUBLIN 10, ABINGTON (5)
ABINGTON 000 00 – 0 2 0
UPPER DUBLIN 101 08 – 10 9 0
3B: UD – Ethan Madnick. 2B: UD – Nick Lombardo 2, Kyle Rizzo, A – Alex Dardaris.
