DORRANCE — Just one night after a quiet showing against Abington, the top of the Mountain Top order found its bite on Wednesday night and lived to play another day.
The trio of Garrett Chalker, Jacob Nealon and Eli Metz powered Mountain Top to a 14-7 victory over Mid Valley on Wednesday night in a Section 5 9-11 Little League baseball elimination game.
With the season on the line, this group did a ton of damage against the Mid Valley pitching: Chalker, Nealon and Metz combined for nine hits, nine runs scored and eight RBI out of the top three spots in the order.
“I think we came out today and responded to the performance we had yesterday,” Mountain Top manager Brian Gryboski said. “That crew (Chalker, Nealon and Metz) has carried us pretty much through all of District 16 and into sectionals.”
They came out ripping to start this one, with Mountain Top taking a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. Chalker hit a leadoff double, Nealon drove him in with a base hit and Metz launched a triple into left-center field to bring in Nealon.
Metz scored himself on a wild pitch, and Mountain Top was in business right away.
The lead ballooned as big as 10-2 after Mountain Top scored five times in the top of the fourth, with the top of the order again doing a lot of the dirty work.
They were aided by singles from Calvin Schappert and Maksim Malay; Malay had himself a game, reaching three times on two singles and a walk and scoring twice.
Mid Valley managed to cut that lead in half during a topsy-turvy fifth inning that saw two separate player interference calls, one on each team.
With the bases loaded and one out, Mid Valley looked to push a run across on a wild pitch — only for the runner to be ruled out after the umpires determined that hitter Brennan Mitchell impeded Schappert, in to pitch for Mountain Top, from making a play at the plate.
Mitchell would walk to reload the bases, and another wild pitch would bring in a run for Mid Valley.
A second run would come into score after a routine force play to end the inning was overruled after it was determined that Mountain Top first baseman Harrison George interfered with the runner moving to second.
This brought in a second Mid Valley run, and a two-run single from Mason Perez made it a 10-6 ballgame, with Mid Valley right back in it.
Mountain Top didn’t panic, and put the game right back out of reach in the top of the sixth. Nealon and Metz both drove in runs, with four coming across in total for Mountain Top to make it 14-6.
Mid Valley pushed one more across with its last at-bats but could do no better than that, and Mountain Top closed out the win and advanced to play on Thursday.
“I think these boys show resiliency all the time, we told them to stay focused,” Gryboski said. “Our pitchers did a great job, we threw Harrison (George) to start and he delivered, Calvin (Schappert) came in and threw really well and Anthony D’Arco came in to close it out.”
Mountain Top will be back in action on Thursday against Back Mountain, after Back Mountain lost to Abington in a winner’s bracket game on Wednesday.
Section 5 9-11 Baseball
Mountain Top 14, Mid Valley 7
Mountain Top`AB`R`H`BI
Chalker cf`3`3`2`2
Nealon 2b`4`4`3`3
Metz ss`4`2`4`3
Bendowski 1b`4`0`1`1
O’Neill 3b`3`0`0`0
George p`2`0`1`1
Fauerbach rf`3`0`1`0
Schappert eh`3`1`1`0
D’Arco eh`2`0`0`0
Malay eh`2`2`2`0
Wenzel c`3`0`0`0
Stravinski lf`1`2`0`0
Totals`34`14`15`10
Mid Valley`AB`R`H`BI
Mitchell ss`2`1`0`1
Rivera cf`2`1`0`0
Hughes p`3`0`1`0
Perez c`3`1`2`2
Matthews 1b`3`0`0`0
Hillier 3b`1`1`0`0
Chmil eh`1`0`0`1
Boynton 2b`2`1`0`0
Hollow lf`2`0`0`0
McGrath rf`2`2`1`1
Totals`21`7`4`5
Mountain Top`302`504 — 14
Mid Valley`011`041 — 7
2B — Chalker, Nealon, Metz. 3B — Metz.
Mountain Top`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
George`2.2`1`2`2`1`5
Schappert`2`1`4`1`5`3
D’Arco`1.1`2`1`1`1`3
Mid Valley`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Hughes`3.2`10`8`8`4`0
Mitchell`2.1`5`6`6`3`0
