Governor Mifflin caps sizzling Berks run with another title
READING >> Improbable may be a bit too strong a word. They were, after all, the defending Berks League champions.
But no one quite saw this type of run coming from the Governor Mifflin Mustangs.
Mifflin repeated as BCIAA champions Wednesday night with a thorough 9-0 whipping of Exeter in the championship game at First Energy Stadium.
The Mustangs beat Daniel Boone 11-3 in Thursday’s quarterfinal game before handling Twin Valley 10-2 on Monday. Add in the final score of the championship game win and that’s a 30-5 run against three of the league’s toughest outfits.
Mifflin pulled it off with a decidedly different cast from the crew who dispatched Daniel Boone in this spot a year ago to win it. No one typified that more than Wednesday’s starter and winning pitcher, right-handed 16-year-old junior Noah Weber, who missed the entire run to last season’s crown with an elbow injury.
Weber shut down Exeter’s attack at First Energy Stadum with a complete-game, five-hit shutout — a sort of apologetic gift from the baseball gods, one could suppose.
“We tried to pitch backwards to them, so curve balls in the beginning (of the count),” Weber said. “Luckily, that was working for me. My offspeed stuff was working well.
“I couldn’t ask for anything better. This is great.”
Weber was not overpowering — he struck out just four Eagles — but he pitched to contact, his control was crisp, and he got an aggressive-swinging Exeter lineup to record six fly ball outs, none of which threatened to leave the yard. All five base hits were singles.
Mifflin head coach Chris Hole’s first words to the assembled media on the field after the game were, “Can you believe this?” The head man seemed to sense to unlikely nature of his club’s blitz through Boone, TV and finally, Exeter. The ‘Stangs (14-7) did not set the league on fire during the regular season, finishing with an 11-7 overall record and a 6-4 mark in Section I, good for a four-way tie at the top (Muhlenberg was declared division champions). Exeter (15-8 overall) was part of that group.
“We really jelled as a team in this last week,” Hole said. “I just told the boys in the huddle, just taking a second to process it, how we just ran through the three preseason favorites and never trailed. It’s an unreal feeling to beat three well-coached, quality teams in the way we did.
“We thought we could get back here this year, but the way in which we did … I don’t know that we’ve ever had a tougher road. Boone, TV and these guys. The way we did it, I’m just so proud of our boys. … I don’t know how long I’ll coach for, but I don’t know that I’ll have a more enjoyable year than I did this year around this group of guys.”
Mifflin’s sizzling lumber — the Mustangs raked Exeter pitching for 14 hits — showed it hadn’t cooled off a bit in the bottom of the first inning. They scored two runs on three base hits and a sacrifice fly, putting Eagles’ starter Shaun O’Reilly in an early hole.
That lead ballooned to 5-0 in the bottom of the third. The Mustangs sent seven batters to plate and banged out four more hits, the big blow coming on Ajay Sczepkowski’s two-run single. Earl Kochel added his second sacrifice fly in three frames. Mifflin loaded the bases on three singles, the third of which was a bunt not fielded cleanly by O’Reilly but ruled a hit, before Sczepkowski unloaded back through the box for a 4-0 lead.
Exeter’s most threatening scenario all evening came when Clayton Douglas and Eric Nein slashed a pair of two-out singles in the top of the second, but were stranded on a ground out.
“They hit everything (O’Reilly) threw,” Exeter head coach Justin Freese said. “You’ve got to tip your hat to those guys. They came out swinging the bats and they jumped on him right away. … A couple (pitches) were 0-2 curveballs and they just took everything the other way.
“Two-nothing, you’re still in the game. Then they came out (in the third) and got a couple of hits. We didn’t make a play on a bunt. Shaun slipped when he went to field it. But 5-0 makes it very difficult to come back.”
O’Reilly went five frames. He struck out two and walked one, surrendering 11 of Mifflin’s 14 knocks.
The lead reached 7-0 in the fourth. Zach Wyrick drew a walk to lead off, then scored on Phillip Henry’s RBI double to deep left that one-hopped off the fence — the hardest–hit ball of the night. Chad Kleinsmith traded places with Henry by smacking a double in his follow-up at-bat.
The Mustangs — in a scenario no one could have possibly envisioned a scant couple of hours earlier — had a chance to end it early, in the sixth via the mercy rule, holding a 9-0 lead. They loaded the bases again, with one out, but reliever Nick Klee induced a strikeout and fly out to center to end the threat.
BCIAA Championship
at First Energy Stadium
Governor Mifflin 9, Exeter 0
Exeter – 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0 5 2
Gov Mifflin – 2 0 3 2 0 2 x — 9 14 1
WP: Noah Weber LP: Shaun O’Reilly
2B: M, 3 (Henry, Kleinsmith, Sczepkowski)
