Spring Grove baseball keeps rolling against Bishop McDevitt
It's never ideal for either team when a game is suspended and picked up at a later date, but Spring Grove and Bishop McDevitt dealt with that following a rainstorm that disrupted their district playoff game Monday.
The Rockets led the game by four runs in the bottom of the fourth when play was halted. Spring Grove returned to the field Tuesday, added two additional runs in the fourth and secured an 8-2 victory in the opening round of the District 3 Class AAA baseball tournament at Spring Grove.
Spring Grove (16-6) advances to the quarterfinals where it will take on No. 12 seed Greencastle-Antrim (12-8), a 4-2 winner over Lampeter-Strasburg, on Thursday at a site and time to be determined. The Rockets won their regular season matchup with the Blue Devils, 8-1, on April 11.
When the rain came on Monday, Spring Grove was in front, 6-2 with the bases loaded and no outs in the bottom of the fourth.
Following a fielder's choice by Matt Brooks that saw a runner cut down at the plate, Derrick Hoiles worked the count full and then bounced a single into right field that plated two runs and bumped the lead to 8-2.
"We felt it was a break for us," Bishop McDevitt head coach Steve Groff said of the suspension of the game. "They had all the momentum going their way and we couldn't get anyone out. We looked at today as a second chance. Unfortunately, their guy (Hoiles) got a big hit to score two more runs for them."
Brooks, who worked the first four innings of the game on the mound and allowed two unearned runs and two hits with six strikeouts.
"Matt has the capability to shut teams down," Spring Grove head coach Kevin Stiffler said. "He's a strikeout pitcher, and it's big to be able to get punch-outs in the playoffs. You don't have any worries of an error behind you when you're able to strike hitters out."
Spring Grove replaced Brooks with southpaw Anthony Reed to start the fifth. Spring Grove's only senior, Reed tossed three shutout frames to end it and allowed one hit with one walk and three strikeouts.
"Anthony did a great job of following up Matt," Stiffler said. "He's a crafty guy, though his curve wasn't as good today as it is sometimes. But he did snap off a few good ones."
Reed started things in the top of the fifth with a strikeout and worked around a one-out walk in the inning to hang a zero.
Bishop McDevitt (11-10) received a single from Joe Mione to start the top of the sixth, but the Crusaders couldn't get a runner past second base in the inning.
McDevitt scored its only runs in the first inning on Monday due to an error on a dropped fly ball, but then Brooks settled in and retired nine of the final 10 hitters that he faced.
"Brooks recovered well after the first inning and made it hard on us to get anything going," Groff said. "He's a very good pitcher and they're a very good team."
Spring Grove took advantage of four Crusaders errors in the first four innings.
Hoiles paced Spring Grove's six-hit attack with a pair of singles. Jon Sager scored two runs, and Austin Piety drove in two runs.
Mione registered two of McDevitt's three hits.
Spring Grove 8, Bishop McDevitt 2
B. McDevitt2000000—234 Spring Grove0323000—86
BM, Joe Mione, Bret Bitting (4) and Cole Gerula. SG, Matt Brooks, Anthony Reed (5) and Derrick Hoiles.
SO-BB — BM, Mione 1-5, Bitting 1-1. SG, Brooks 6-1, Reed 3-1; W — Brooks; L — Mione; 2B — SG, Cam Sterner.