Boyertown’s unmistakable pair of aces delivers a state title

Andrew Bauer was quick to correct.

“One-one combination,” the senior right-handed pitcher quickly pointed out.

The Boyertown baseball team didn’t feature a 1-2 pitching combination this season. It was ‘1-1’ all the way with the duo of Bauer and junior right-hander Pat Hohlfeld carrying the Bears to their third PIAA championship in school history and first in 25 years.

It’s a rotation of equals in part to their similarities on the mound. Neither is a dominant force in stature or stuff. They simply know how to pitch effectively by pounding the zone, keeping hitters off-balance and have the demeanor to stay calm in the eye of a storm.

“We’re just like the same pitcher,” Hohlfeld said. “We throw the same pitches, have the same strengths and we just back each other up. I’ve closed his games, he’s closed some of mine and we work together.”

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After the regular season, the duo was close to going solo.

Bauer was diagnosed with colitis and pancreatitis in the winter and was placed on a series of irritable bowel syndrome pills to attempt to correct the stomach and digestive ailments. Gallbladder ailments run in Bauer’s family and after meeting with a surgeon, the possibility of removing his gallbladder after the Pioneer Athletic Conference playoffs was on the table.

“After PAC-10s they were going to take it out,” he said. “So I could have just missed this whole districts and state run.

“I didn’t expect to win PAC-10s. That was wow. Then they said they’re going to take it out after PAC-10s. I said ‘nuh-uh, I don’t think so.’ Not with what’s happening this year. This is the team.”

Timely hitting was key, but it came down to two starting pitchers – plus Grant Fronheiser’s crucial two innings of relief in the semifinal – bringing the goods.

“It’s so nice. Who are you throwing in your first game of states? Just our ace. Who are you throwing in your second game? Oh, we’re just throwing our ace. It’s awesome knowing that as soon as I’m done Pat is going to pick things up, mow through it and it’s going to come back to me,” Bauer said.

“The last couple games he’s just been lights out against good teams. Wyoming Valley West was a really good team and so were these guys (Plum). And he just shut them down.”

Hohlfeld didn’t need an assist Thursday in sending Boyertown past District 7’s Plum, 4-1, at Penn State’s Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. He hurled a complete-game six-hitter and didn’t allow an earned run, the only hard hit balls against him coming off the bat of Plum first baseman and Minnesota Twins first-round pick Alex Kirilloff.

In the late innings, even as the Bears tacked on a couple insurance runs in the seventh inning, Hohlfeld sat alone in the dugout as his teammates were on the edges of their seats.

He had focus. The focus of a champion.

“I didn’t say anything the whole game, just on my own,” he said. “I’ll say things every once in a while, but I usually just stay by myself, drink water and chew gum and go back out for the next inning.

“I’ve always been known as the calm person, don’t show any emotions, straight-faced and keep throwing strikes.”

But as the personable, quirky Bauer sees it, the unassuming, steely Hohlfeld on the mound isn’t the full picture.

“He’s such a goofball. He’s probably the biggest goofball on the team, so sarcastic,” Bauer said. “He doesn’t show it on the field. But I think he’s gonna go home and he’s gonna freak out.”

Maybe deservedly so, but neither pitcher even appeared rattled on the mound during the Bears’ state championship run, whether it was Hohlfeld in the quarterfinal win over Wyoming Valley West, Thursday’s final or Bauer in the semifinal win over Cumberland Valley.

Still, they didn’t recognize the weight of the occasion.

“It kept getting more and more real through the state tournament, but honestly today if you told me we were playing for the state championship I would have said, ‘I don’t think so.’ I stayed so calm, it didn’t feel real,” Hohlfeld said. “But now it does.”

The Bears’ top 2 have been unmistakable for some time: Bauer with his trademark mutton chops and Hohlfeld sporting a beard and long, curly hair.

“Bauer’s had his chops since we were like 15 and this is my first year that I can get most of a beard,” Hohlfeld said. “My dad lets me grow it out for school ball then I cut it in the summer. So that’s why my hair is five inches long and I have a beard.

“It started at the end of PAC-10s. I would ask coach (Todd Moyer) who is pitching and he’d say, ‘Fear the beard.’ I’d say, ‘that’s me.’ It was funny so I kept a playoff beard and kept it rolling.”

All from humble beginnings just hoping to win a league title.

“We didn’t win the PAC-10 the past two years and that was really our goal was to win that. This was a fantasy thing, a mythical ‘Oh, states, a state championship. Maybe we’ll go there,’” Bauer said.

“We went there and we won.”

Now, they’ll forever be unmistakable as the 1-1 punch that carried Boyertown to a state championship.