Upper Dublin finishes rally with walk-off win against Marple Newtown in District 1-5A semifinals
PLYMOUTH >> Ethan Madnick was the finisher, but Justin Richman was the stopper.
For three innings, almost everything had been going Marple Newtown’s way with the visitors putting plenty of runners on base and pitcher Jimmy Wigo keeping the hosts scuffling at the plate. Then Richman came on in relief, the runners stopped getting on base and UD had a window to turn its day around in a District 1-5A semifinal baseball game where every pitch felt important.
Madnick delivered the winning moment, flaring a walk-off single to right field as the No. 2 Cardinals rallied to beat the No. 3 Tigers 4-3 at Villanova Ballpark and advance to the district title game.
“I was just trying to put a ball in play and not strike out,” Madnick said. “Anything could happen, even a ground ball or an error, anything can happen so I went up, stayed back and got the winning run home.”
That Madnick, who plated shortstop Nick Lombardo as the decisive run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, was even in position to do so is a credit to Richman’s efforts on the pitching mound. Richman, a right-hander, inherited an entirely undesirable estate when he took over for starter David Sharp in the top of the third inning.
At that point, Marple Newtown led 3-0 and had the bags loaded with nobody out and poised to break things wide open early on. Instead, Richman got the first batter he faced to ground back to the mound, got a force-out at home and retired the next two hitters to end the threat then allowed a grand total of three runners and zero hits the rest of the game.
“I was trying to make them hit the ball, basically,” Richman said. “I knew our fielders, they don’t make errors, so I was trying to put it in a spot where they could make plays, roll some ground balls or fly balls and let them do their thing.
“I felt like my two-seamer was working for the most part, every time I threw it, it seemed like they were rolling over so I was trying to attack with the two-seamer inside and jam them up. The top of their order can hit really well, so I was trying to make them give us some ground balls.”
Sharp didn’t have his most pointed outing but he did battle on the mound, limiting the damage in the second inning to just one run on a wild pitch and leaving two runners aboard. The lefty, who went to the outfield after his pitching outing, would also factor in the comeback bid later on with his sixth-inning single tying the game 3-3.
“That’s the type of kid he is,” Cardinals coach Ed Wall said. “Despite what happened at the beginning, he stepped up and did his job and it’s what he’s been doing all season.”
Marple Newtown started strong, with Dillon Can ripping a one-out triple to right and scoring on Owen Mathes’ sac fly in the first and adding another run an inning later when Bennett Cox scored on a high pitch that sailed to the backstop. Even the third inning was off to a solid start as Can led off with a single, advanced on Mathes’ base knock and scored on Jason Bennett’s RBI single.
Everything went cold from there. The Tigers didn’t record another hit the rest of the game and didn’t have another runner advance beyond first base as an opportunity to ground the Cardinals fizzled.
“It’s been our nemesis all year,” Tigers coach Frank Zimmerman said. “We get the bases loaded or men second and third with no outs and can’t put the ball in play.
“Their kid (Richman) did a nice job, he put the ball where he needed to put it and we could barely put the ball in play against him. I thought we had a couple bad at-bats there, didn’t stay through the ball and drive the ball but the kid did a nice job.”
Upper Dublin scratched a run back in the bottom of the third on an RBI groundout by Lombardo and threatened again an inning later with two men on before Tigers hurler Jimmy Wigo locked down. The Marple Newtown lefty struck out back-to-back batters to strand the runners out of their roost to close the fourth then kept his streak rolling by punching out all three UD hitters in the fifth inning.
In total, Wigo would strike out seven batters in his 5.2 innings of work.
“Jimmy threw well, they didn’t really hit the ball hard, they had some soft liners and a couple ground balls that got through,” Zimmerman said. “The bottom line is, we have to hit the ball, you have to score runs and to go from the third inning on without a hit is what killed us.”
Leo Soriano temporarily broke up the strikeout streak with a leadoff walk in the bottom of the sixth, but Wigo got Madnick on a K before Jared Levis stepped into the box. The Upper Dublin second baseman gave the offense the spark in needed, feathering an RBI double inside the right field line that cut the lead to one and left him in scoring position.
Sharp delivered in the next at-bat with a long single to left that brought in Levis, who hesitated briefly after rounding third but scored easily, to tie the game.
“We talked about going to a more simple approach and just getting the barrel down like it was a two-strike approach,” Wall said. “Wigo, I mean, he showed how good a pitcher he is with the velocity and the curve ball and slider off of it. I felt like if we simplified and barrelled up, then we’re letting him do all the work for us but it took us a little while before we started making contact.”
Richman felt he found his groove with a clean fourth inning that featured a double play behind him, so going out for the top of the seventh against the heart of the Tigers order wasn’t anything that got the UD hurler worked up. It might have been his best inning of work as the right-hander induced three consecutive ground balls, two to short and the last to third, for a quick 1-2-3 spot that gave the Cardinals a chance to walk-off.
“I have all the confidence in the world in my team,” Richman said. “All I had to do was go do my job and I knew they’d do their job.”
Lomardo was hit by a pitch with one out, putting the senior shortstop aboard where he stole second during the next at-bat. With the winning run in scoring position, Madnick settled in and battled, getting to 2-2 in the count then fouling off a few pitches to stay alive.
“I was just making sure I gave us a chance to win the game,” Madnick said.
Thanks to one swing of his bat, that’s exactly what he did.
“It was middle of the plate, I decided to take it the other way, waited back and put a rope on it,” Madnick said. “It was awesome, but we know we’re not done yet.”
MARPLE NEWTOWN 111 000 0 – 3 4 1
UPPER DUBLIN 001 002 1 – 4 7 0
WP: Justin Richman. LP: Justin Brennan. 3B: MN – Dillon Can. 2B: UD – Jared Levis
