Pa. Boys: Spring-Ford stuns Boyertown's ace
Spring-Ford's baseball team was able to do something that no other team could accomplish this season. Yesterday, the Rams beat Boyertown ace Shayne Houck, 4-3, knocking both Houck and his teammates out of the PIAA District 1 baseball playoffs in a second-round game.
Spring-Ford's
baseball team was able to do something that no other team could accomplish this season.
Yesterday, the Rams beat
Boyertown
ace Shayne Houck, 4-3, knocking both Houck and his teammates out of the PIAA District 1 baseball playoffs in a second-round game.
Advancing instead are the visiting Rams (14-8), the district's No. 9 seed in the south section, and one of Boyertown's Pioneer Athletic Conference rivals.
The Rams got a gritty performance from their starter, Elliot Criss, who went all seven innings and threw 130 pitches. Houck threw 100 pitches.
It was Houck's first defeat after eight wins, and the Bears, the five-time league champion and No. 1 south seed, fell to 18-3.
In other second-round games:
Neal Herring kept
West Chester East
in the game with a solid pitching outing, and the bats came to life in the eighth inning of a 5-1 win over visiting
Plymouth Whitemarsh
.
Herring pitched all seven innings, giving up just two hits, striking out six, and walking one.
Another Ches-Mont League team, champion
Avon Grove
, made short work of visiting
Hatboro-Horsham
, 14-4, behind the pitching and hitting of Brandon Snyder, who allowed four hits and got two of his own.
Bobby Monahan's two-run homer in the top of the 11th inning gave
Truman
, the No. 10 seed, a 5-3 upset at No. 2
Methacton
.
Kyle Birmingham's two-run single helped host
Conestoga
past
Cheltenham
, 4-2.
Kevin Fink's two-run homer in the fourth inning broke a tie and gave top-seeded
North Penn
a 4-2 win over visiting
Central Bucks West
.
District 1 Class AAA.
Dan Wing and Pat Loughran hit homers for
Unionville
in an 8-5 win at
Phoenixville
.
Catholic.
In a quarterfinal game at Richie Ashburn Field in South Philadelphia, host
St. Joseph's Prep
got a combined no-hitter from Kyle Mullen, Kevin Gillen and Pat Carbone for a 10-0 win over
Archbishop Wood
. Brett Tiagwad went 3 for 4 with a run scored and three RBIs to become the all-time leading hitter at the school, surpassing his brother, Matt, a 2006 graduate. Tiagwad now has 106 career hits; Matt Tiagwad had 105.
The Hawks advance to play
Neumann-Goretti
, a 1-0 winner over
La Salle
in another quarterfinal. Sophomore Mark Donato won his seventh game in as many starts, pitching a seven-inning two-hitter. The Saints got a two-out single by Mike Riverso to drive in the game's only run.
Pa. Independent Schools.
Erik Hubbard gave up just two hits, as
Chestnut Hill Academy
pounded
Christian Academy
, 11-1, in the first round.
In other first-round games:
Penn Charter
, rolled to a 9-1 win over visiting
Westtown
as Mark Rhine went 3 for 5 with three doubles and three RBIs.
The Quakers (17-7) got three solid innings out of starter and winning pitcher Mike Carroll.
Jessie Biddle had 13 strikeouts for host
Germantown Friends
in a 2-1 win over
Haverford School
. Biddle allowed just two hits and had an inside-the-park homer to tie the game in the fourth inning.
John Gentile's grand slam in the fifth powered host
Malvern Prep
past
Episcopal Academy
, 11-5.
Germantown Academy
got a three-hitter from Timmy Vernon in a 12-0 win over visiting
Abington Friends
.
Lacrosse
Will Judd, Kyle McClellan and Jake Zucker scored two goals each, giving
Woodlynde
an 8-5 win at
Delco Christian
for the Tri-County League title, the school's first since 2005. Andrew Renninger and Langston Smart also scored for the Warriors.
EPSLA.
In a first-round game, host
Episcopal Academy
topped
Unionville
, 17-3, getting three goals from Richard Craft and three assists from Drew Green.