Methacton belts its way past Cheltenham for non-league win

WYNCOTE — Dan Brandi wore the belt, and his Methacton teammates wore wide smiles as the Warriors slugged their way to 3-0 on Thursday.

“It was definitely a good team win today,” said Brandi. “We’re looking for a four-win week.”

Brandi played a key role in Methacton’s 8-1, non-league victory over Cheltenham, racking up three hits and driving in a pair of runs and scoring one himself.

At game’s end, he was given the “Kerry Williams Championship Belt,” which the Warriors award to the game’s most outstanding player. Williams was a longtime coaching legend at Cheltenham and Methacton.

“It’s really cool. Matt Sperling, who is as good as it gets as assistant coaches go – he does everything for our program, and we had an assistant coach (Williams) who is a legend at Methacton who passed away a couple years ago,” Warriors coach Paul Spiewak said. “A couple of these guys played for him when they were freshmen and sophomores and Matt had the idea to take the belt and name it after (Williams).

“He was just Mr. Baseball. He loved baseball. He was around it all the time and I played for him here at Cheltenham actually. I played for Kerry, kept the relationship with him after I was done playing with Cheltenham, and then he joined us at Methacton for a number of years and was a great asset to our program.”

The belt is given to the game’s outstanding player from the player who won it the previous game. Matt Christian, who stood out in the victory over Norristown on Wednesday, awarded Brandi the belt on Thursday.

“We wanna keep the trend going and next game, I’ll give it one of my teammates,” said Brandi, who fit all the criteria on this afternoon.

“Matt (Sperling) had the idea of giving it to somebody who not only had a great game but embodied the many things that (Williams) always stood for, which was to play hard all the time, respect your opponent,” Spiewak said. “He was great with that stuff, so this belt has sort of taken on a nice little memory of him but it’s also something the guys are shooting for.”

Brandi helped break the game open for the Warriors, driving in a run to extend Methacton’s lead to 6-1 in the third and then knocking in another to make it 8-1 in the seventh.

“I felt good out there,” Brandi said. “We’re looking to get after it, game by game.”

Catcher Mike Wimmer scored three times for the Warriors, including Methacton’s first run in the second, which evened things up at one apiece. Cheltenham’s Eon Nelson had put the Panthers ahead in the first when he walked, advanced to third on a passed ball and wild pitch, then scored on a single by Jacob Sterman.

RBI singles by Christian and Nolan McCloskey improved the Warrior lead to 3-1 in the second, which increased to 5-1 that inning on some untimely errors by the Panthers.

Bobby Kleckner’s sacrifice fly made it a 7-1 game in the fourth, sandwiched in between the RBI hits by Brandi.

“It’s a nice start,” Spiewak said of the 3-0 mark. “It was a good opportunity this week for everybody to get opportunities to play. Every player on our roster had multiple at-bats each game this week. We’ve had varying levels of success with some guys knowing what they need to work through.

“You don’t win or lose championships in March but next week, based on who we’re playing and how many games we have, I can’t imagine we don’t look back on next week and how many games we have, that it was a swing one way or the other with four games against three of the top teams in the (Pioneer Athletic) Conference. We needed this week to get us into a groove.”

Cheltenham made several outstanding plays in the field but is looking to tighten things up and have a more consistent defensive performance.

“We had some good plays and some bad plays. Errors lose games,” Panthers coach Marc Jones said. “And we can’t leave runners on base like we did. The best thing about it is we get right back on the horse (on Friday with a home game against William Tennent). We wanna maintain a good culture. Losing is contagious but winning is even more contagious.”

Methacton 8, Cheltenham 1

Methacton 051 100 1 – 8 9 0

Cheltenham 100 000 0 – 1 1 2

WP: Tyler Hines (3IP, 1R, 1ER, 1H, 6K, 4BB).

LP: Brian Trainor (2IP, 5R, 1ER, 4H, 1K, 1BB).

Multiple hits: M-Mike Wimmer 2-for-3, BB, 3R, RBI; Matt Christian 2-for-3, SAC, RBI; Dan Brandi 3-for-4, R, 2RBI.