Methacton rallies past Wissahickon
WORCESTER >> You can’t start a fire without a spark.
For Methacton Tuesday afternoon, that spark was a Mike Christian bunt single. The slow-roller down the third-base line started a four-run fifth inning that saw the Warriors erase a one-run deficit and build a three-run lead. They carried that momentum through the rest of the game to pick up a 9-4 non-league win over Wissahickon at Methacton High School.
The Warriors (1-0) hit into a fielder’s chose after Christian’s beauty of a bunt. Mike Lamalfa was hit by a pitch before a flyout to left field put the tying run on second base and the go-ahead run on first with two outs.
Kross Howarth tied the game with a single that landed just fair in short right field and, after Lamalfa scored on a wild pitch to give the Warriors the lead, Tommy Kratz added some breathing room with a two-run double. Howarth and Will Gottheardt crossed the plate to give the Warriors a 5-2 lead at the end of the fifth inning.
“Mike (Christian) had struck out twice,” Methacton coach Paul Spiewak said, “and I know he was frustrated. The best way to get through that is to get on with a base-hit bunt and he did a great job and I think that sort of sparked the offense at that point.”
“(The bunt) just fired us up,” Howarth added. “We just wanted to hit the ball even more.”
Methacton added four more in the bottom of the sixth. Jake Chapman had an RBI single, Howarth a two-run single and Kratz a sacrifice fly to extend the lead to seven, 9-2.
“It was a good baseball game for the most part,” Wiss coach Andy Noga said. “We enjoy coming up here to play Methacton because they’re a very talented team, very well-respected program in the area. If we make the one play there (on Howarth’s fifth inning single) I think it’s a much different inning… That’s still the early-season growing pains.”
Howarth went 4-for-4 in the game. The sophomore Tulane commit tallied three RBI and scored a run.
“I was hunting for the fastball,” he said. “It was really working out for the first few at-bats and I just kept it going.”
Baker Grant was 3-for-4 from the nine spot in the batting order. He knocked in the Warriors first run with a two-out single in the bottom of the fourth inning to cut their 2-0 deficit in half.
“Kross has a ton of talent and Grant is one of our toughest outs in terms of he’s going to give you a great at-bat every time he’s up there,” Spiewak said. “He squared up a couple balls – even when we were struggling early on – Grant had really good at-bats to start. It was huge for both of them. Kross hit a lot of balls hard last year right at people, so it’s nice to see early this year a couple balls found an empty spot. He used the wind to his advantage and found a couple empty spots, but he also squared a couple balls up, too. That’s baseball, but certainly those two guys were our best offensive players today.”
Ty Lohsen got the win on the mound for Methacton. He threw the final four innings, striking out five batters to no walks and allowing two runs on five hits. Dan Brandi started and threw the first three innings, surrendering two runs on three hits with five strikeouts to two walks.
“This was our first time in a competitive environment and I thought they did a great job,” Spiewak said, crediting his pitchers for performing well despite the cold temperature and consistent wind. “Starting with Brandi setting the tone – he worked out of a couple jams. Then Ty came in and I think he was 29 pitches through the first two-plus innings that he had. I thought he did a great job and I thought we played really well defensively behind them. It was nice to see that they gave us a chance to win, which is all we’re going to ask of our pitchers this year.”
Reed Bram started for the Trojans (0-1) and received a no decision. The right-hander struck out four batters to no walks over 4 1/3 innings. He allowed two runs on eight hits.
“We like Reed a lot,” Noga said. “Reed pitched in similar games last year. Reed really didn’t miss a day in the weight room all offseason so it was really refreshing for us to see that he was getting some results out there. The hard work he was putting in all offseason to take his game to the next level showed out there. I just wish we had his back a little bit more defensively and offensively.”
Danny Crump and Josh Palutis threw the final 1 2/3 innings, allowing a combined seven runs on six hits.
Wissahickon took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third inning. Ben Junker reached on a fielder’s choice and scored on a Kasey Weiss double. Weiss advanced to third and scored on two wild pitches.
In the top of the seventh, Junker hit a one-out double and scored on a Weiss single. Two batters later, Weiss scored on a Morgan Wilson groundout to make it 9-4.
Junker went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and two stolen bases while Weiss was 2-for-4 with two RBI and two runs scored.
“Kasey has certainly taken that next step,” Noga said. “In our two scrimmages and in our game today he’s swung the bat very, very well. Ben did that last year. I don’t want to say I’m expecting anything, but it was definitely encouraging to see Ben swing the bat well. We know he was run well, so any time he puts the ball in play or gets on first base it’s going to be tough to deal with.”
Methacton 9, Wissahickon 4
Wissahickon 002 000 2 – 4
Methacton 000 144 x – 9
WP: Ty Lohsen 4 IP 5 K 0 BB 5 H 2 R
LP: Danny Crump 0.1 IP 1 K 1 BB 1 H 3 R
2B: W: Ben Junker, Kasey Weiss. M: Tommy Kratz.
