Ludwig, early runs lock up PAC Liberty for Spring-Ford baseball

ROYERSFORD >> Without aces Dylan Broderick and Michael deHaan eligible to pitch in a matchup of top-four District 1 Class 6A teams, Spring-Ford’s Austin Ludwig embraced his assignment.

The junior lefty arrived to Ram Stadium at 4:15 p.m. ahead of first pitch at 7 with a Bang energy drink, listening to Rod Wave on his air pods to get in the zone. Through five innings on the mound, Ludwig never left it.

Behind early runs and a combined shutout highlighted by Ludwig, district No. 2 Spring-Ford blanked No. 4 Methacton, 5-0 to clinch the Pioneer Athletic Conference Liberty division on Thursday.

“I knew I just had to go out there and throw strikes. I have my guys behind me and once I got out of that first inning, I tried to come in and get our guys as fired up as possible,” Ludwig said. “Once they got the lead, I was rolling from there.”

FINAL — Spring-Ford 5, Methacton 0

Crawford closes it out, and with a tiebreaker over Methacton, that should lock up the PAC Liberty for the Rams. pic.twitter.com/4Hj2hDiYML

— Evan Wheaton (@EvanWheaton) May 5, 2023

Spring-Ford (8-1 Liberty, 13-1 PAC, 15-2 overall) clinched the division with a game remaining by virtue of holding the divisional tiebreaker over Methacton (record vs. division ladder). The Warriors (7-2 Liberty, 11-3 PAC, 14-3 overall) can claim the top wild card spot with a win in their final two games.

Ludwig struck out nine and knocked the Warriors down in order once. His 96th and final pitch in the sixth inning marked Methacton’s first hit of the game, by which point the Rams (15-2, 8-1) carried their five-run cushion.

While Ludwig brought Spring-Ford through five frames, senior Sean Crawford pulled the Rams past the finish line, striking out two with one hit allowed.

Prior to Thursday, Ludwig had just six innings on the mound all year when he was called to duty.

“Coach just threw me out there. I kind of had to run with it,” Ludwig said.

Spring-Ford wasted no time putting enough runs in the bank to go the distance with four runs in the bottom of the first inning. David Ruckman and Nick Flores got on base with singles and Broderick drove them in with a triple to shoot up 2-0.

Jake Witmer (2-for-2) then scored Broderick with a line drive to left field before another RBI single from Gage Swanger, capping a six-hit first inning to vault the Rams ahead 4-0.

The final hit for the Rams came in the bottom of the third, albeit a big one. Witmer sent a solo shot just over Spring-Ford’s scoreboard to close out the scoring, returning to the dugout with the final result in hand.

Bot 3 | Hello, Jake Witmer.

The sophomore sends a shot just over Spring-Ford’s scoreboard to go up five.

Spring-Ford 5, Methacton 0 pic.twitter.com/MPoN4Shs6R

— Evan Wheaton (@EvanWheaton) May 4, 2023

Tulane pledge Kross Howarth shut the Rams down the rest of the way, pitching three 1-2-3 innings with three strikeouts in six frames.

“He’s a very good pitcher, he has very good stuff. He certainly settled in and shut us down the rest of the game,” Spring-Ford coach Rick Harrison said on Howarth. “I think we came out with some good energy and strung together some hits. We got that lead and kind of sat on it. We’d obviously like to score a few more, but luckily we did enough in the beginning to hold that lead.”

Held to just two hits, the Warriors still let their presence be felt along the base paths. Altogether, 10 players reached base, four of them via walks.

Once Crawford relieved Ludwig in the sixth inning, Methacton loaded the bases with one out. But Crawford sipped a figurative Bang energy drink of his own, tacked on back-to-back strikeouts and wiped the side to patch the holes in the boat before water seeped in.

“We had opportunities all night, obviously baserunners in bunches in a handful of innings. Even in the seventh, I still felt we had a chance,” Warriors coach Paul Spiewak said. “Each of those innings early where we had guys on base with less than two outs and weren’t able to move runners and put together some runs certainly was deflating for us.”

At times, there was some rockiness in Ludwig’s delivery, like two hit batters to begin the third inning. But he pitched himself out of situations, tacking on three straight strikeouts to get out of that frame.

That was the story of the night, pitching into traffic and working out of innings before things got out of hand for Spring-Ford.

“We got some quality effort on the mound, some quality defense for the most part,” Harrison said. “If we can continue to do that and stretch our pitching staff like I think these guys did tonight, I think we’ll be a team to be reckoned with as we progress.”

Mid 3 | After two hit batters to start the frame, Austin Ludwig dials in with three straight strikeouts to keep Methacton off the board.

Spring-Ford preserves a 4-0 lead. pic.twitter.com/CuSOHRiv2U

— Evan Wheaton (@EvanWheaton) May 4, 2023

Having the PAC Liberty title locked up, the Rams are primed to contend for another conference crown, last winning it in 2021.

Methacton has one PAC title from 2014 when the Warriors ran the table in District 1-6A. Having missed the 20-team district postseason field by one spot last year, the Warriors have since turned around and are well within postseason contention.

They close out their regular season with Boyertown and Upper Perkiomen in a bid to enter the PAC tournament.

“We were just outplayed tonight. Credit to them,” Spiewak said on Spring-Ford. “In a big game, they played well in every facet.”

Spring-Ford					Methacton
	ab	r	h	bi		ab	r	h	bi
Ruckman	3	1	1	0	Chapman	3	0	0	0
Moyer	3	0	0	0	Kleckner	2	0	1	0
Flores	3	1	1	0	Howarth	3	0	0	0
Broderick	3	1	1	2	Kratz	3	0	0	0
Whitmer	2	2	2	2	Shytle	3	0	1	0
Korchok	3	0	1	0	Christian	2	0	0	0
Swanger	3	0	1	1	Weil-Kaspr	2	0	0	0
Eross	2	0	0	0	Humes	3	0	0	0
Cecconi	2	0	0	0	Lohsen	2	0	0	0
Totals	24	5	7	5	Totals	23	0	2	0

3B — Broderick; HR — Witmer.

	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Methacton
Howarth	6	7	5	5	1	3
Spring-Ford
Ludwig	5	1	0	0	3	9
Crawford	2	1	0	0	1	2