Hatboro-Horsham rallies late, hands Plymouth Whitemarsh 1st loss
HORSHAM >> Forty-two outs aren’t enough to separate Plymouth Whitemarsh and Hatboro-Horsham.
The Suburban One League Liberty Division rivals went to extra innings when they met earlier this season and they did it again Monday afternoon.
In the rematch the Hatters got revenge, overcoming a five-run deficit to tie the game in the bottom of the seventh inning before Will Bruner’s walkoff single in the bottom of the eight gave them a 7-6 win at Harboro-Horsham Senior High School.
Jimmy Tooley led off the bottom of the eighth inning with a walk. He stole second and advanced to third when the throw went into the outfield. Bruner’s game-winner went over the second baseman’s head and into right field.
“I love the late-game opportunities,” Bruner said. “Last week against Wissahickon, came back in the seventh inning. I came up and singled two home to help get us the win. I love these opportunities. Slow the heartrate down, keep it going.”
The Hatters (10-6, 4-3 SOL Liberty) needed a late rally to force extra innings. Trailing 6-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth, they made it a four-run game when Ryan Toporowski reached on an error, stole second, advanced to third by tagging up on a foul fly ball and scored on a wild pitch.
Tooley led off the bottom of the seventh with a single and Bruner and Toporowski followed with singles to load the bases with no outs. After a fly ball to right field, Logan Fischer grounded into a fielder’s choice to score Tooley and make it 6-3 with two outs.
Noah Gremo, Trey Porter and Jack Elwell hit three consecutive RBI singles to tie the game at six and force extra innings.
“We have that fight in us, always,” Bruner said of the team’s never-give-up mentality. “Every game we come back. We’ve come back from deficits in the last two innings at least five times this year. We’ve been playing really well. We’ve got to fight.”
“We just have that attitude now that we never feel like we’re out of a game the way our offense has been clicking,” Hatboro-Horsham coach Pete Moore said. “For our offense to come back and score that many runs – four runs – in the last inning against a team like that – it’s pretty exciting.”
Fischer pitched the top of the eighth for Hatboro-Horsham and sat the Colonials down in order to set the table for Bruner’s game-winning hit.
Plymouth Whitemarsh (15-1, 6-1 SOL Liberty) made a number of mistakes it can look back on after its first loss of the season. The Colonials pitchers combined for nine walks while the offense saw three runners get thrown out at home – two of which came in the sixth and seventh innings.
“We did a lot of things in the late innings wrong,” PW coach Chris Manero said. “We left a lot of guys on base, we made some uncharacteristically poor base-running decisions and our pitchers really struggled to throw strikes. I think they struggled to throw strikes all day – nine walks and three hit batters. With the way baseball works, everybody knows if you give free bases you’re going to struggle. We didn’t do enough things today to deserve to win even though we had 12 hits and they made five errors.”
The Colonials jumped out to an early 2-0 lead. Joe Jaconski reached on an error to start the game and Jesse Jaconski doubled. Luke Caucci singled home Joe Jaconski and Jesse scored on a wild pitch.
They added runs in the second and third innings to double their lead to 4-0. Jesse Jaconski knocked in Anthony Viola in the second and Luke Gartland was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the third.
The Hatters got on the board in the fourth inning. Cole Fisher was hit by a pitch and advanced to second and third base on two wild pitches. He scored on a Toporowski single – Hatboro-Horsham’s first hit of the game.
“It was big for us to actually get on the board,” Moore said. “I think that was the most important thing was scoring the run. As far as the hits, our guys have had so much confidence lately the way they’ve been swinging the bats. I think they were so confident that they’d get the hits. To get on the scoreboard was really important. It was a big at-bat by Ryan (Toporowski).”
Mike Moore hit a solo home run for PW to extend the lead back to four, 5-1, in the fifth inning and Joe Jaconski singled in Eddie Owens in the sixth to make it 6-1.
Plymouth Whitemarsh will have an opportunity to clinch a share of the SOL Liberty title Wednesday when it hosts Upper Dublin.
“The positive is that we’re 15-1,” Manero said. “We told our guys we won 15 games in a row – it’s not easy to win, especially in baseball, 15 in a row. It’s a matter of do we want today to define the rest of our season or do we just pick up the pieces, come out and work hard tomorrow and finish strong.”
The Hatters will try to extend their win streak to eight games when they travel to Abington Wednesday.
Hatboro-Horsham 7, Plymouth Whitemarsh 6
Plymouth Whitemarsh 211 011 00 – 6
Hatboro-Horsham 000 101 41 – 7
WP: Logan Fischer 1 IP 1 K 0 BB 0 H 0 R
LP: Ben Picker 0 IP 0 K 1 BB 1 H 1 R
2B: PW: Jesse Jaconski 2, Luke Gartland. HH: Trey Porter.
HR: PW: Mike Miller.
