Upper Moreland fell to Western York 2-1 in the PIAA Class AAA state title game at Penn State University on Friday. To view photos of all the action, please visit the Photo Gallery later this weekend.
By Dave Conard for SuburbanOneSports.com
STATE COLLEGE—Anyone that knows Upper Moreland head coach Ernie Rehr realizes that the Golden Bears skipper is never one to hold back or sugarcoat his postgame comments.
He calls it like he sees it.
To that end, it wasn’t surprising when Rehr expressed how long the busride home would be after his team’s 2-1 loss to West York in Friday’s PIAA Class AAA title game. Especially knowing that his very talented squad had just lost to a pitcher it could have beaten.
“He was probably the softest guy we have seen all year,” said Rehr, whose hard-hitting lineup was frustrated all day by West York lefty Brandon Kinneman (6-4). “There was nothing deceptive about him, we just needed to stay back and we did not make a good adjustment on him.”
Despite allowing Upper Moreland to post a single run in the first, Kinneman, who struck out just two Golden Bears while walking six, continually found a way to work out of danger by inundating the Upper Moreland hitters with a variety of off speed stuff.
“My fastball was just average today, and I was struggling a bit with my curve,” said Kinneman. “My changeup was definitely my best pitch today and got me out of trouble a couple of times. I think it was a huge advantage for us today having been here before. We graduated an amazing class of seniors last year but being here really helped us execute.”
Execute.
A very important word, and one that will be stuck in the memories of the Upper Moreland players and coaches, who closed out an amazing run just one run short of their ultimate goal of hoisting the state championship trophy.
“We just did not execute the little things today, and they did,” said Rehr. “We have men at second and third twice and could not get the two-out hit we needed, and I took us out of another inning by sending the runner from third. You can’t overcome those kind of things and win games at this level.”
The Golden Bears (21-5), who typically drives opponents crazy with their ability to play small ball, fell victim in the second inning to their own modus operandi when the Bulldogs pushed two runs across the plate.
Carson Fries, who singled and stole second with one out, scored on an RBI single by Chase James. James would score the eventual game winner on a squeeze bunt by Brandon Rauhauser to post the defending state champs to a 2-1 lead. Rauhauser laid down a perfectly “executed” - there’s that word again - bunt that starting pitcher Eddie Decker had no choice but to turn and throw to first just in time to get the speedy leadoff man just as he reached the bag.
Upper Moreland had ample opportunity to erase the one-run cushion in three of the next four innings. The Golden Bears had runners reach second and third twice and loaded the bases in the fourth but failed on each occasion, hitting 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position for the tilt while stranding a total of nine men on base.
After a rough second inning, Decker (7 IP, 8 h, 1ER, 2 R, 2BB), who suffered his first defeat of the season, settled in and scattered just three base hits the rest of the way and kept the Bears within striking distance, forcing weak fly balls to end the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.
“Eddie worried me at first,” said Rehr. “But then he settled down and did what he always did, shutting down a very strong hitting line up. We don’t usually give up those walks early, and that’s how they got their run by executing small ball.”
“Eddie deserves all the credit in world for what he did today and all season,” said senior centerfielder Matt Kohn. “He goes out every game and gives us a chance to win, he didn’t back down today and did a great job shutting them down.”
“We just needed to score more runs and did not get it done today. This has been a great ride, and we came up just a little short of our goal. We wanted to end (our season) with a state championship, but this does not diminish what we have accomplished as a team.”
After managing to narrowly escape jams in the fourth and fifth innings, thanks to fly ball outs to end both frames, West York (21-9) and Kinneman were up against it again in the sixth when Mike Cavanaugh worked a walk to start the frame for Upper Moreland, prompting Bulldogs head coach Roger Czerwinski to replace his lefty with fireballer Carson Fries.
Czerwinski, Fries and just about everyone in Medlar Field were surprised to see Nick Corbett dig in to the batter’s box as opposed to squaring to try and move Cavanaugh into scoring position.
“I told my coaches while they were changing pitchers, ‘Right now everyone is going to question why I don’t have Corbett bunt,’” said Rehr. “You have to know your players, and anyone watching the game saw Nick hit the ball hard the first two time up.
“I wasn’t going to have him try to put down a bunt that he may not have been able to execute (that word again) when he had been one of the best hitters all game.”
While sound in principle, the strategy backfired on Upper Moreland a bit when Corbett was fanned by Fries. Kyle Irwin, perhaps the best bunter on the team, failed to get one down before eventually flying out the second base on a 2-2 pitch.
In their final trip to the plate with the PIAA class AAA championship hanging in the balance, the Golden Bears had the bats taken out of their hand, so to speak, as the strike zone had been eradicated between innings while the plate apparently went through a growth spurt.
To their credit, despite having Matt Kohn called out on a pitch that essentially bounced to the dish and senior captain Robert Knox getting rung up on a pitch that would have plunked a left handed batter, Upper Moreland still had life when Pat Driscoll managed to work a walk and sophomore Kyle Bennis, who ran for Driscoll, stole second.
On a 1-1 count, Charlie Hooker drilled a shot, which was initially mishandled by the Bulldogs third basemen, giving Bennis a chance to round third, but as Evan Zinn recovered and threw to first in time to get Hooker, the game was over and the celebration commenced for West York.
“I was worried about him being safe at first,” added Kinneman, who had taken over first base when he left the mound. “I saw the runner going around third and was getting ready to throw it home when I realized that he had called him out at first and the game was over. This is just an amazing feeling to be here again like this.”
“You hate to see it come to that,” added Rehr. “We gave the game away early by not taking advantage of our chances and we had it taken away by a strange strike zone the last two innings.”
“If we have executed early on, we would not have been in that position and it would have mattered how much the zone changed. I am very proud of these guys and the journey they have made and am already looking forward to next year as we had six or seven juniors starting in any given game this season.”
West York 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 -- 2 8 1
Upper Moreland 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 -- 1 4 2
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