Chemistry has Christopher Dock baseball playing at high level

TOWAMENCIN >> The ball was right where Rashid Saint-Fleur wanted it, in the high part of the strike zone.

Saint-Fleur didn’t waste the golden offering in the bottom of the first inning, launching the 2-0 fastball over the fence in left field for a two-run home run. It was just the spark that the Christopher Dock outfielder and the rest of his teammates needed.

Dock routed visiting Delco Christian 15-0 in four innings Wednesday afternoon as the Pioneer baseball team continued its torrid start to the season.

“It felt great off the bat, I was just looking to hit the ball,” Saint-Fleur said. “I wasn’t trying to do anything special, I just wanted to get that run in. It was a little off and that’s where I like to lift it.”

Dock (10-0, 6-0 BAL Presidents) scored in every inning of the game, never letting up offensively while Danny Sabath pitched a quick and efficient game to give his hitters more time to work. Sabath struck out four, gave up one hit and didn’t allow a runner past second with his defense chipping in a couple nice plays.

The whole lineup was keyed in as Dock plated six runs in the second inning with Andrew Walters and Trey France delivering two-run singles in the frame. Dock then scored four in the third inning and pushed three more over home plate in the fourth inning to bring up the run rule.

Walters, the shortstop, had a big day with two hits and four RBI.

“Our team is a really good-hitting team and we go out every inning and keep trying to put runs on,” Walters said. “This team’s got tremendous chemistry. We’re all great friends working together, we have a lot of good practices and love getting wins.”

Dock’s unbeaten start is a testament to the group’s chemistry and approach. The Pioneers are having a lot of fun this season and Walters said it extends to practice, where the group keeps it light but also gets a lot of work done.

Prior to Saint-Fleur and Walters taking their turns to discuss the games, their teammates applied the time-honored tradition of some good-natured ribbing. Every player is supportive of the other and even after the game, the Pioneers had three reserve players on the infield taking extra grounders.

Coach Ed Melendez hasn’t tried to put too much on his players. The main philosophies stay the same, but the coaches try to have the team focus on one or two small things every game.

“We’re going to play and try to score runs in every inning,” Melendez said. “We continue to play aggressive. In the box, we don’t take too many pitches, we want the guys to swing at everything in the strike zone and it makes a huge difference.”

In November when the team started workouts, it had a meeting where Melendez reinforced that the team doesn’t have any superstars and everyone picks each other up. It’s hard to pick a team MVP at this point.

Sabath is a clear-cut ace, but senior backstop Tim DiLoreto is a big part of that success while guys like Walters and centerfielder Tyler Alderfer have been raking at the plate all season. Every hitter is capable of having a big game and Wednesday, Nolan Bolton delivered with three hits and two RBI while Alderfer walked twice, singled, doubled and scored four times with two RBI.

“Everything just clicked,” Walters said. “We have great hitters top to bottom, great pitching, great fielding. We’re just doing our thing.”

The Pioneers have avoided getting big heads over their accomplishments so far, which Saint-Fleur credited to the team’s leaders and the coaches. With a huge game looming next Tuesday with Holy Ghost Prep, Walters said the team’s focus is squarely on Friday’s game first.

Saint-Fleur said he can’t point to anything special that’s led to the team chemistry this year, but the guys feel like a family and they enjoy putting in the work every day.

Melendez pointed to his reserves taking extra ground balls as a sign of this team’s focus. Instead of just being happy to win a run-rule game, there were guys who wanted to get better and were willing to put in the time and effort.

“I have said basically from Day 1 that we are going to lose some games and at the same time we need to learn from those mistakes,” Melendez said. “The good thing is we went down in a few games and we bounced back.”

The game with Ghost will be a good benchmark for the team and Melendez said Sabath has already asked him to take the ball to the mound and embrace that challenge.

“It helps us with our confidence,” Saint-Fleur said. “It shows us we can play good baseball and pushes us to get better every day. Our team chemistry is over the top, we work hard in practice, we know what to do and we have great leaders.”

“We just build off each other,” Walters said. “That’s really how this team works.”