Wissahickon’s Willans dazzles, offense capitalizes in District 1 win

LOWER GWYNEDD >> The Strath Haven baseball team made a few mistakes Tuesday afternoon and Wissahickon took advantage of them.

When the Trojans have junior pitcher Logan Willans on the mound, those mistakes typically result in the game going Wissahickon’s way.

That was the case in the District 1 Class AAAA first round game where the No. 13 seed Trojans topped the No. 20 seed Panthers, 4-0, at Wissahickon High School.

Willans threw a complete game, three-hit shutout. He struck out nine batters compared to just one walk.

“I was pretty efficient with my pitches,” Willans said. “I was hitting a lot of my spots and it was just good after losing the first (district playoff) game last year to come out and win finally.”

“He was on the mound in the first inning and I was thinking there is no shot they’re touching him today,” Wissahickon coach John Bernhardt said. “He was locked it. He’s a bulldog. He was going on just guts at the end. He’s got nothing left and gets three outs.”

The only real jam the junior right-hander faced was in the fourth inning. After a strikeout to start the inning, back-to-back errors put runners on first and third. Willans stayed calm and struck out the next two batters to end the threat.

“You’re not going to win many high school games with three hits,” Strath Haven coach Brian Fili said. “(Willans) did a nice job. He kept us off-balance and threw a lot of strikes. They made some plays (in the field) when they needed to.”

The Trojans did all of their scoring in the second and third innings.

Connor Freeston and Eddie Fortescue sandwiched two hits around a strikeout in the bottom of the third. Ben Maltin followed with a safety squeeze, but signs were crossed up and neither runner advanced from second or third and Maltin reached first with a single.

Blake Rapoport followed with a slow roller back to the pitcher, who threw the ball over the catcher’s head to make it a 1-0 Wissahickon lead and leave the bases loaded with one out.

Alex Tappen hit a tailor-made double play ball to second base that would have ended the inning. Strath Haven’s Andrew Pennoni flipped the ball to shortstop Anthony Viggiano who fired to first base ahead of Tappen. Viggiano was ruled to be off the bag when he caught the ball, so Fortescue scored, Rapoport was safe at second and Tappen was out at first.

“I thought that was a big key to the game,” Fili said. “That led to two more runs. Instead of it being 1-0 it was 3-0.”

Matt Shilling was intentionally walked to load the bases and Maltin scored from third on a wild pitch to give Wissahickon a 3-0 lead before the inning ended.

Jeremy Spittle led off the bottom of the third with a single, reached second on a wild pitch and stole third on a weird play where the ball beat him by a few steps but the third baseman lost his balance and Spittle stepped around the tag. Willans dropped down a perfect safety squeeze bunt to score Spittle and make it a 4-0 game.

“We put the ball on the ground,” Willans said. “We’ve been struggling with that this season, but getting the ball on the ground, forcing them to make plays and we took advantage of it.”

Junior Will Carey started for the Panthers and would have had a much cleaner stat line with better fielding. He threw all six innings, striking out five and walking one. He allowed six hits and just one earned run.

“I thought our pitcher did a nice job from there on out,” Fili said, referring to the missed double play. “I don’t think they had many hits in the last couple innings.”

Wissahickon is right back at it Wednesday afternoon against No. 4 seed Perk Valley — which had a first-round bye — at 4 p.m.

“I know (Perk Valley is) young,” Bernhardt said. “I’m sure we’re going to see the (sophomore Brock Helverson) … I’ve only heard good things. I heard he’s very, very good. We’re going to have our work cut out for us, but with Tappen on the mound, he’s a bulldog, he’s so tough. It’s going to be a war tomorrow. We’ll be ready to go.”

Strath Haven’s season came to a close with Tuesday’s loss.

“We struggled a little bit last year,” Fili said. “We lost some good players to college programs. The kids worked hard all year … To go 10-6 and third place in the Central League is pretty good.”