Aggressive baserunning sends Methacton past Wissahickon

LOWER GWYNEDD >> Methacton’s offense only produced seven hits against Wissahickon Friday afternoon.

What the Warriors couldn’t do with their bats, they made up for with their legs.

Methacton stole nine bases to set the table for all of its runs in a 5-1 non-league win over the Trojans at Wissahickon High School.

“All year coach (Paul Spiewak) has been telling us if you get a good jump, go,” Methacton center fielder Kevin Trafford said. “We’ve been trying to all year, just manufacture runs. Whenever we can get a good jump we try to take a bag.”

The tone was set early. Trafford worked a leadoff walk to start the top of the first inning and stole second and third base. He scored on a Perry Corda one-out groundout to give the Warriors an early 1-0 lead.

“Looking at the pitcher’s move to first I thought I could get a good jump off him,” Trafford said. “I saw that and tried to go.”

In the top of the seventh and the teams tied, 1-1, Nolan McCloskey was hit by a pitch with one out. He stole second and third to draw the infield in and Trafford ripped a single past a diving fielder to score the game-winning run.

“It’s smart baseball,” Spiewak said of the situational stealing. “We’re really lucky we have 11 seniors, most of which have been playing varsity for three or four years and they know the routines and what we’re trying to do. They’re a very smart baseball team. A lot of that is the experience they’ve had.”

Trafford stole second and scored on a Conor Smith double to extend the lead to two, 3-1.

“We were fortunate that the guys who ended up on base were baserunners that are extremely aggressive,” Spiewak added. “Trafford, McCloskey are all very, very aggressive and they were on base a couple times and were able to wreak havoc, especially Trafford. He’s a tremendous baserunner. He’s had some tough luck this season in terms of hard-hit balls right at people, so it was good to see that he was able to get on base and his best asset is not only his aggressiveness, but how smart he is on the bases.”

Smith scored when he stole third and the throw soared into left field.

Andrew Catania scored the fifth and final run. He singled and advanced to second on a wild pitch. With two outs, a Mike Daddazio grounder to third was thrown away, scoring Catania and sending Daddazio to second.

While the offense was stealing bases, Methacton’s pitching was keeping Wissahickon off the board.

Danny Carr threw the first two innings, allowing one hit and no runs. Robert Maloney followed, surrendering one run on two hits in two innings. Smith threw the final three innings and picked up the win. He kept the Trojans off the scoreboard and struck out five batters to one walk to go along with one hit.

Wissahickon scored its run in the bottom of the fourth. JT Culp hit a leadoff single and Andrew Buck came on as a courtesy runner for the catcher. He stole second, advanced to third on a Ryan Keys fly ball to center field and scored on a wild pitch.

Gio D’Amore started on the mound for Wiss and allowed one run over five innings. He struck out three batters to two walks while allowing three hits.

“We really like Gio’s stuff as a left-hander,” Trojans coach Any Noga said. “He started a non-league game against the Prep and kept us in it throughout six innings and then just started this game and kept us in it for five innings. We really like Gio and have a lot of confidence in him.”

Joel Bjordammen took the loss. He allowed four runs in two innings of work on four hits while striking out one batter to no walks.

It was Senior Day at Wissahickon. The seniors were honored before the game and each was taken out mid-game to standing ovations.

“We wanted to recognize our seniors the right way,” Noga said. “We wanted to give them an opportunity to start the game and let them get to the fifth inning, a couple at-bats and then get our regular guys in there to hopefully try to win the game at the end.”