North Penn’s offense does a bit of everything in win over CB West
DOYLESTOWN >> North Penn’s offense showed its versatility against Central Bucks West Thursday afternoon.
The Knights scored the first five runs of the game playing small ball. They worked walks, got hit by pitches, bunted and stole bases.
After the Bucks closed the gap with a three-run home run in the bottom of the fourth inning, North Penn started to hit. The Knights sent 12 batters to the plate in the top of the fifth, totaling six hits – including three doubles – as they pushed eight runs across the plate.
North Penn held CB West scoreless in the bottom half of the fifth to grab a Suburban One League Colonial Division win, 13-3, at Central Bucks West High School.
“The one thing you can’t do when you get a lead is you can’t let them hang around,” North Penn sophomore Jack Picozzi said. “You really need to keep your foot on the gas and that’s exactly what we did. We came out swinging. We felt really confident at the plate. We were seeing the ball well and it was a really good job by everybody to get up there, barrel the ball up and keep going until the game was over.”
The eight-run fifth inning started with Sam Cohen getting hit by a pitch, Ryan Sullivan singling and Quinn Marrett’s two-strike sacrifice bunt getting thrown away. After a strikeout, Jeff Sabater grounded out to second to score Cohen and make the score 6-3.
Evin Sullivan and Picozzi sandwiched two-run doubles around Justin Egner getting hit by a pitch to make it 10-3. Colin Orndoff had an RBI single before Cohen’s RBI double. Marett singled to score Cohen and make it a 10-run game, 13-3.
“We didn’t do a lot right in any phase of the game in that inning,” CB West coach Brian Weaver said. “(North Penn coach) Kevin (Manero’s) guys did a real nice job of playing smallball until their bats got going. They executed in every phase and we didn’t and that’s the story. He does a great job of doing the little things right all the time and that’s why his teams are so successful. If you can’t counter that with execution of your own, then you’re in trouble. They’ve got a lot of momentum right now and few things are scarier in District 1 then a North Penn team with momentum heading into the playoffs.”
The smallball started in the first inning for the Knights (9-4, 3-3 SOL Colonial). Sabater worked a one-out walk and advanced to second on an Evin Sullivan bunt. Egner delivered with a two-out RBI single to put North Penn ahead, 1-0.
After a scoreless second inning that saw the Knights bunt twice, they got back on the scoreboard in the third. Sullivan was hit by a pitch with one out and Egner singled to put runners on the corners. Picozzi laid down a perfect bunt that the Bucks defense allowed to keep rolling but it never went foul. Sullivan scored to make it 2-0.
Marett was hit by a pitch with one out in the top of the fourth and stole second before scoring on a Sabater single. Sabater moved to third on a Sullivan single and scored on a first-and-third steal situation. Egner, who went 3-for-3, singled home Sullivan to make it 5-0.
“We know in our conference and our league there’s a lot of really good pitching,” Manero said. “There’s going to be a lot of days where we’re going to swing and pitchers are going to overpower us. It’s the best pitching I’ve seen in probably 19 years of coaching. If you can’t do something else, it’s hard to beat the good pitching. We’ve been pretty diligent this year with working on the short game and I think finally guys are starting to get confident in their execution of it. That’s why I feel good going forward – I know we can do more than just swing.”
The Bucks (5-9, 3-3 SOL Colonial) scored their three runs in the bottom of the fifth. James Carbone singled and Mike Bukowski walked to put two runners on with no outs. Aiden Kim followed with a three-run home run to right field, cutting CB West’s deficit to two, 5-3.
Max Grill followed with a walk and North Penn brought in Gavin Mikulski to relieve starting pitcher Christian Stevens. Mikulski picked Grill off first base before getting two groundouts to end the threat.
“Gavin coming in and getting out of that inning and keeping it right where it was,” Manero said, “I felt pretty good knowing that they were going to have to get us out three more times the way we were playing. They responded real well. There’s two things you want – you want shutdown innings and you want to answer back. If you’re doing those things it’s pretty tough for a team to beat you.”
Mikulski walked a batter with one out in the bottom of the fifth before ending the game with a strikeout and fly ball to left field.
The win is the fourth straight for North Penn. They won road games at Council Rock North, Neshaminy and Harry S. Truman in the week leading up to Thursday.
“I’m real proud of the way the guys played this week,” Manero said. “Real good stretch of baseball they put together right now.”
“(The winning streak) is really huge for us,” Picozzi added. “We were struggling a little earlier in the season. We had to come out and we had to get some wins. To come away with four straight like that, that’s huge for our confidence. We’d like to keep up that momentum the rest of the season.”
The Knights road trip ends Monday at Pennridge. West is back in action at home Monday against CB South.
North Penn 13, CB West 3
North Penn 101 38 – 13
CB West 000 30 – 3
WP: Christian Stevens 3 IP 5 K 4 BB 3 H 3 R
LP: Julio Ermigiotti 4 IP 2 K 3 BB 8 H 5 R
2B: NP: Sam Cohen, Evin Sullivan, Jack Picozzi
HR: CBW: Aiden Kim
