Upper Moreland rallies past Shanahan in 8 in District 1-AAA first round

UPPER MORELAND — Sometimes playoff baseball can be an entirely different animal than regular season play, and Tuesday may have been one of those times asUpper Moreland rallied back to beat Bishop Shanahan 7-6 in the first round of the District 1-AAA playoffs.

Early on it was all Shanahan. It managed to put two quick runs up on the board in the top of the first inning, one of which came off the bat of third baseman Nick O’Day, who finished 2-for-5 from the plate with a pair of RBI’s.

Not only were the Shanahan bats hot early, but its pitcher was almost perfect.

The Eagles’ ace, Frank Chubb, faced just one batter over the minimum through three innings and struck out six of the 10 batters that he saw, without allowing a single hit.

Chubb was dominating hitters, and making them look silly in the box. He was pounding the zone early and often, and using his hard breaking curve to freeze batters.

That’s when Shanahan head coach Brian Boyko did something curious, he pulled Chubb.

“That’s my mistake,’ said Boyko. “I was trying to plan ahead and I should have just burned him (Chubb), that was stupid on my part. You try to set it up so that you’re ready for the next game; with the short rest, if he’s going to pitch he can only get three innings, so I figured the rest of my guys throw well too and had enough confidence in them but I probably should have let him go because he was on.’

On this day, the rest of his guys just weren’t good enough. The bullpen allowed seven runs through five innings and walked seven Upper Moreland batters while giving up the lead.

Perhaps most heartbreaking for the Eagles was how they lost, on a bases loaded wild pitch in the eighth inning, which was pretty much a one pitch summary of their bullpen’s performance.

While a lot of it was inconsistency from the Eagles’ pitchers, a large portion of the credit needs to go to the Bear’s hitters and bullpen.

Junior Joe Bates got the start for Upper Moreland, but was tagged for four runs through three innings and was struggling with his command as he missed up in the zone and walked three hitters.

After those three innings, their manager decided to go to his bullpen and bring in Jaryd Goldstein, who seemed calmer and more in control on the mound as he managed to go five innings for his team and only allowed two runs.

“It was awesome,’ said Upper Moreland head coach Kevin Irwin. “The two of them (Bates and Goldstein) have kept us in a lot of games this year, I just took him (Bates) out because he had the ball up and they we’re putting the balls in play so I was just hoping Jaryd was able to keep it down some and he was, we got a double play ball from him, but Joey Bates will probably be back on the mound Thursday or our sophomore Brandon Kohn.’

As for the hitting, cleanup hitter Jon Searles finished 2-for-4 from the plate, as did speedster Nick Delucas, who was giving Shanahan fits on the base paths and causing all sorts of confusion.

“To the credit of the kids they just kept battling. Early on in the season we kind of beat ourselves up, but the difference in this one was we didn’t drop our head, we kept playing,’ said Irwin. “The kid’s really went out there and fought back, it was incredible.’

Upper Moreland will f ace Holy Ghost Prep on Thursday in the next round of districts, a team they’ve seen before on this stage.

“We know they’re great,’ Good said. “They’ve got the same pitcher that beat us two years ago in the district championship.

“The good news is none of my guys were here, so we’re just glad we’re moving on.’