MIDDLETOWN — Of the 15 hits Garnet Valley produced during Monday’s 13-3 trouncing of Penncrest, Garnet Valley coach Rudy Shiller was most happy with the two that should have been outs.
Mark Zuppo and Brady Thompson smacked routine ground balls to the second baseman and shortstop, respectively, turning them into singles for the Jaguars, who hustled everything out and gave an old-school coach like Shiller something to smile about.
Zuppo’s little dribbler to second ignited a three-run rally. The speedy second baseman was the first of eight batters to step to the plate in the top of the third as the Jags took a 3-0 lead against Lions starter Michael Pagliaccetti.
“Running hard to first is what I’m really proud of,” Shiller said. “They busted their butts and that really set the example for everyone else. And it also put the pressure on (Penncrest) and you see how the game changes when you do that.”
Zuppo, who is committed Penn State-Berks, came around to score in the third. He finished 3-for-4 with an RBI double and three runs scored. The first six batters in the Jags’ lineup all reached base at least twice.
“Some of the older guys definitely set the example for what the standard is for our team. We also have mature sophomores and juniors,” Zuppo said. “Being able to show that’s what you’re supposed to do … because even when you hit a ball that you know is going to be an out, you run it out to first as hard as you can because something could happen. I think it’s a good example of how our team plays together. We grind everything out as a team.”
One of those “mature juniors” is center fielder Chris Schaller, who offered protection for Zuppo as the Jags’ two-hole hitter. The University of Richmond commit had a pair of singles, two walks, two runs scored and one RBI.
“I think this was definitely one of the biggest games for us today,” Schaller said. “We scored 13 runs and only let up three. We haven’t been able to score that many runs, but our bats got moving today and we hustled. We hit one-through-nine. There was no guy in our lineup that me or Zuppo didn’t have faith in. We know we can hit and we really showed what we can do.”
After Penncrest tied the game in the bottom of the third, Harrison Maull delivered the go-ahead, two-run single in the fourth. Zuppo – surprise, surprise – began the rally with a single. In the top of the fifth, Zuppo belted a ground-rule double the opposite way to right field, scoring Jake Krautzel.
Garnet Valley (6-3-1, 5-3 Central League) busted the game open with six runs in the sixth. Thompson’s infield single to shortstop got things rolling. The big knock came off the bat of freshman pitcher Kyle Klein, who drove in two with a seeing-eye single up the middle.
Klein pitched three shutout innings in relief of starter Nick Gordon to earn the win. He allowed no hits and struck out one.
“I was really happy for him,” Shiller said. “He got his first hit, his first RBI and his first win today.”
Thompson went 3-for-4 with an RBI out of the cleanup spot. Maull collected two hits and two RBIs, while Cole Lombardo had a single and two walks.
Penncrest (6-5, 5-4), which has lost three of four, had seven of its eight hits in the first three innings. Sam Dinitz led off the third with a single and raced home on Ben Ettien’s RBI double. Henry Murphy and Harry Giles added run-scoring hits to tie the game.
