Mounts drop Pioneers onto Semifinals
- 12 May 2009
Adrian Shelley isn't a fan of the phrase "small ball."Ephrata's baseball coach prefers to think of his team's style as pressure-oriented, the kind of ball that forces opponents to make critical errors at crucial times.
Case in point came Monday night, when the Mountaineers manufactured the tying and winning runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to stun Lampeter-Strasburg 6-5 in their L-L League quarterfinal at Manheim Township.
"Putting the ball in play was something we did the entire game," Shelley said. "When you play that type of baseball, sometimes it has its advantages."
The Section Two champion Mounts (13-8) will rematch with Section One runner-up Penn Manor (16-5) in tonight's 4 p.m. semifinal at Ephrata's War Memorial Field. Ephrata beat Penn Manor 10-7 on April 9.
The Comets will look to keep their cool tonight against a Mounts squad whose affinity for pressure baseball was partly responsible for L-S's four errors, including one that allowed courtesy runner Jordan Eberly to score the winning run in the seventh.
Trailing 5-4 after the Section Three runner-up Pioneers scored two runs in the top of the inning on RBI singles by Joe Good and Klyer Morgan, the Mounts loaded the bases on a leadoff single by Chris Adams and a pair of hit batsmen. Brooks Carr slapped a grounder up the first base line that scored pinch runner Parke Martin, and Evan Weaver rapped a low drive to first that was misplayed, allowing Eberly to score the game-winner.
"Crazy game," said Madison Zimmerman, who earned the win in relief. "We were hitting pretty good, so we were pretty confident we could scratch another run across."
Mark Lowrie had a two-run home run for Ephrata and Brok Martin drove in one run and scored another. Evan King led L-S with three singles and scored two runs.
We here at www.ephratamounts.com are proud sponsors of the Dodgeball for Diabetes tournament.