Dock’s Wayne Brenner tallies 200th win against Upper Dublin

UPPER DUBLIN >> Dock Mennonite head coach Wayne Benner won his 200th game Friday afternoon.

The Pioneers scored seven runs in the fourth inning to highlight an 11-1 win in five innings over Upper Dublin at Upper Dublin High School.

“(200 wins) says that the program is good,” Benner said. “I’ve had a lot of really good girls. We’re not afraid to come out and play a big school.

“It’s about the kids being good enough to win, basically. I’m just an equipment manager.”

“That was awesome,” Dock pitcher McKenzie Gordon said. “It’s so cool to be with him on that day. It was really cool as a team to reach his 200th win.”

The seven-run fourth inning removed most of the drama from Friday’s non-league matchup.

The only remaining question was whether or not Gordon would throw her first no-hitter. After four innings the right-hander had two walks and she entered the bottom off the fifth with an 11-0 lead.

Erin Gallagher led off with an infield single for Upper Dublin to breakup the no-no and Taylor Avery followed with another single. Gallagher scored on a groundout to give the Cardinals their lone run.

Over five innings, Gordon struck out four batters to three walks to go along with one run on two hits.

“I just wanted her to throw strikes,” Benner said. “A lot of this stuff is pretty basic — throw strikes, make them hit the ball. If they hit the ball, hopefully you field it. There’s no defense against walks. We push that a lot … She did really well and hopefully it will continue.”

“I don’t know that we ever did get going (on offense),” Upper Dublin coach Heather Boyer said. “There wasn’t necessarily an offensive threat at any time.”

Dock’s offense took control right out of the gate. Kennedi Wells walked to leadoff the top of the first inning and Theresa Beck reached on an error to follow. They each scored on singles by Kate Strickland and Rachel Lopes.

The Pioneers blew the game wide open in the fourth inning.

Melea Ruth got it started by reaching on an error and Wells followed with a walk. Beck plated both with a triple and Jocelyn Pfleiger did one better with a two-run home run to make it 6-0 Dock.

After the first out of the inning, Lopes doubled and scored on a Gordon single. Bri Stoner followed with a single of her own and both scored on a Ruth base hit to make it 9-0.

“We had a double-header yesterday and I don’t know where the bats came from but we had eight home runs,” Benner said. “I thought it would either carry over or it would be a big drop off. It seemed more or less like a carry over today. They’re just attacking balls when they’re strikes. That’s the key. If you can figure that out, you have a big plus. They did well.”

The Pioneers added two more in the fifth. Lopes and Stoner each had an RBI single.

Gallagher started in the circle for the Cardinals and only threw one inning. Julia Wolf came on in relief and pitched the final four frames.

“(Gallagher) threw a complete game (Thursday),” Boyer said. “I’m thinking she just didn’t have it (against Dock). We gave Julia a run. Unfortunately she threw well and we didn’t play good defense behind her, which is really frustrating. She’s shown really good glimmers of potential and improvement and then there will be times where she struggles with the strike zone. Today she was throwing strikes and then we did not field consistently behind her at all. That’s frustrating to see.”

The Cardinals committed five errors Friday afternoon.