Kutztown rallies late to clip Camp Hill, 6-5, for District 3 2A crown

FREDERICKSBURG >> With lightning and rain quickly descending on Wenger Field Thursday night, Justin Renninger rediscovered the lightning in his right arm.

Renninger stepped in with a runner on base and no outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, gave up a bloop double, then struck out the side in order with the tying and winning runs on base to close a game he started and clinch the District 3 2A baseball title for Kutztown, 6-5, over Camp Hill in a wild game that took close to three hours to complete.

The victory, Kutztown’s third district title, clinched a PIAA berth for the second-seeded Cougars (18-5) while sending the top-seeded Lions (16-5) packing for the summer. It was a glorious return for the Cougars, who were D-3 finalists in 2017 but missed out a year ago.

Renninger the starter was not particularly sharp Thursday night. Renninger the closer was a different beast.

With Camp Hill runners perched on second and third base with no outs, he shut the door with three consecutive strikeouts on hard heat to clinch Kutztown’s first D-3 crown since 2007.

“There was pressure there and my heart was beating really fast,” Renninger said of his closing appearance. “In my mind, though, there were other people who had the pressure (Camp Hill’s batters). That’s what I needed to do, just go out there and do my job like I needed to do

“What changed was, I had a lot of time to think about (his start) while I was in right field. I move on from it after the third inning but it stayed in the back of my head and I thought to myself, ‘don’t let that happen again’.”

Veteran Kutztown skipper Tim Mertz had the residue of tears of joy on his face as he spoke. Those tears weren’t for him. After all, he’s been here before. This generation of Cougars, however, had not.

“These kids work hard,” Mertz said, struggling for words. “And everything we put in, we work, we talk … I don’t know what to say.

“Typically, my teams are strong pitching, and defensively. Over the years we haven’t much of an offensive team. But this year, it’s been clicking and they’ve been putting the ball in play and we’ve been scoring runs. … These kids have stepped up and have been playing awesome baseball.”

Renninger started the title game at Wenger under brilliant sunny skies, 45 minutes beyond the targeted start time of 6:30 p.m. But he struggled. A two-run triple by Camp Hill’s Carey Myers — Renninger’s opposite number — gave the Lions a 3-0 lead in the bottom of third and chased him from the start after just 2 1/3 innings pitched.

Myers, Camp Hill’s No. 2, looked every bit the daunting task first time around the order, with a slider featuring good tilt and a fastball he could spot to either side of the plate.

But Kutztown seemed to have him timed a bit better coming back around. It took a while, but the Cougars finally managed a base hit off Myers with Gage Sicher’s two-run single to right field in the top of the fourth to slice the deficit to 3-2. Sicher drove home Lewis Weaver, who had walked, and Renninger, who reached on a wild pitch after chasing ball in the dirt.

It was the first of three straight frames in which the Cougars posted two runs, on a sloppy night that featured seven total errors — five by the winners.

Kutztown sent eight to the plate the next inning, tying it on an infield hit from Dylan Moyer before taking its first lead, at 4-3, when Weaver reached on a single/E-6. The miscue from deep in the hole allowed Moyer to scamper home with the lead run.  

Camp Hill retook the lead, 5-4, in the bottom half of the fifth with a pair of runs, both unearned. Three errors bit the Cougars and reliever Connor O’Neill, who was pitching well in relief of Renninger.

Kutztown rallied again, swinging the see-saw back in its favor with a third successive two-run at-bat. Trevor Leverington delivered the tying knock with an RBI single to right to score Sam Schaeffer, who was plunked by Myers to lead off the frame.

Ryan Brauer then drove home what proved to be the winning run with a sacrifice fly to center to score Alex Graff. Graff had walked behind Schaeffer and moved to third on Leverington’s base hit.

O’Neill played the unsung hero role Thursday night to an extent, calming choppy waters even as the lead exchanged hands. He couldn’t quite see it all the way through, however, walking the leadoff batter in the bottom of the seventh in a one-run game. That sent Mertz to the hill to call on his starter (and current right fielder) to come back in and seal the deal.

“He really was,” Mertz said of the role O’Neill played in keeping the Cougars tethered to the game. “Last year and this year’s he’s been my closer, the guy who would come in at the end of games and he did the job. Tonight, gave him a shot to finish, but I wasn’t gonna mess around.”

 

District 3 2A championship

At Wenger Field, Fredericksburg

Kutztown 6, Camp Hill 5

K –  0  0  0   2  2  2   0 — 6  5  5

CH – 1  0  2   0  2  0   0  — 5  6  2

WP: Connor O’Neill  LP: Carey Myers  S: Justin Renninger

K, Renninger (O’Neill 3, Renninger 7) and Dylan Moyer; CH, Myers (Carson Ebel 7) and Jackson Thompson

2B: CH, Ben Snyder

3B: CH, Myers