Klepchick stifles Pennridge, CB South takes lead in SOL Continental

PERKASIE >> If the rest of the Suburban One League Continental Conference wasn’t on notice, it should be now.

Central Bucks South has a certified ace in junior Dan Klepchick. The right-hander turned in a stellar outing Monday as he jammed up and shut down a pretty potent Pennridge offense in a 4-0 win at Kulp Field.

After his teammates spotted him a lead, Klepchick did the rest, holding the Rams to just two hits while striking out seven against just one walk as the Titans took sole possession of first in the conference.

“We couldn’t really get anything going, Danny (Long) got a hit and Andrew (Horne) got a hit but other than that, we didn’t get very many good swings off Klepchick,” Rams coach Tom Nuneviller said. “Sometimes you just tip your cap, but I also would have liked to have been a little more aggressive out there.”

CB South was aggressive from the first pitch when Tyler Watson unloaded on one for a loud fly-out to right. Tyler Rossi singled and stole second, taking third on a wild pitch with two outs, allowing him to score on DH Casey Slom’s single.

The Titans added two more two-out runs in the first when first baseman Andrew Dietz deposited a pitch from Ian Kacergis into center field for a two-run double. CB South was clearly looking to hit early on and made the Rams pay by taking a 3-0 lead before Klepchick even threw a pitch.

It was all the cushion he would need.

“I knew they’re a good hitting team so I had to keep the ball down and hit my spots,” Klepchick said. “The off-speed wasn’t really working early in the game, but it started coming around later. I was focusing on the fastball at the knees and at the corners.”

Klepchick and catcher Eric Gross framed the strike zone well, with Klepchick using the corners to his advantage. When he did put something up for the Rams to make contact with, it wasn’t enough to come all the way around on.

After allowing a leadoff walk to Mitch Mcleod in the first, Klepchick got the next three in order and nine straight through the third inning. In the bottom of the third, he jammed three straight hitters into sending fly balls to center fielder Tyler Rossi and kept his outfielders working all game with seven fly ball outs.

“I didn’t want them to extend on the ball, keep them jammed and not extend through with their hands and let the fielders do the work behind me,” Klepchick said. “It shows they’re going hard and I have to be on my game to back them up because they’re backing me up the entire game.”

After the first inning, Kacergis settled down and pitched very well, striking out two then deftly fielding a dribbler off Dietz’s bat for a 1-2-3 third. The righty got through five innings before Austin Rodenberger and Brendan Knouse pitched the last two innings.

Even after Long led off the fourth with a single up the third base gap, the Rams couldn’t build on it, moving him to third on two fielder’s choices before Klepchick jammed up Kacergis on a fly out to center. It was a similar case the next inning when Horne led off with a single, the first of three Rams runners who weren’t able to safely advance past first base.

Klepchick made the first play, throwing out Horne on a Luke Nuneviller grounder, then shortstop Kyle Rossi made a great reaction play after a Riley Hager dart had glanced off third baseman Will Moller’s glove. Rossi was able to field the deflected ball, scooping it up and flipping to second baseman Justin Mauz for the fielder’s choice force-out.

“We just weren’t getting good swings at him and he was coming after us,” Nuneviller said. “We didn’t have it. He’s a very good pitcher, we saw him last year as a sophomore, he played varsity as a freshman so he’s been around and he’s very good. Sometimes, you just have to tip your cap to him.”

CB South added an insurance run in the sixth on an RBI by Gross, but Klepchick was rolling by the point, getting his off-speed stuff where he wanted and retiring Pennridge in order in the sixth and seventh inning, ringing up Horne for the last out.

As the only 3-0 team in the Continental, the Titans know they have a long way yet to go in the title race, but Klepchick said the start, which also includes wins over North Penn and Hatboro-Horsham, has shown the group they have the talent to do it.

Pennridge falls into a big logjam of teams in second place which includes the Hatters, Knights and Souderton, Pennridge’s opponent on Tuesday.

“When you’re facing pitchers like this, it’s difficult, we have a lot of good pitchers in this league,” Nuneviller said. “You can’t let games slip away and (South) got us in that first inning and that was all they really needed.”