Central Bucks West defeated top-seeded Spring-Ford 4-0 to capture the program’s first ever District 1 6A title. Photos provided courtesy of Kim Supko Photography. Check back for a gallery of photos: https://solsports.zenfolio.com/f12122253
District 1 6A final
#14 CENTRAL BUCKS WEST 4, #1 SPRING-FORD 0
“Absolutely epic.”
It was a comment to no one in particular by a fan capturing CB West’s jubilant postgame celebration on camera, and it effectively summed up the Bucks’ magical run through the District 1 6A Tournament that culminated with a Sam Greer masterpiece on the mound and the program’s first ever district crown.
Fourteen seeds aren’t supposed to win district titles – they’re not even supposed to be playing this late in the season, but apparently no one told the Bucks, who proved they not only belonged – they pretty much owned the district tournament, winning their last four games by a combined score of 34-2.
“It feels amazing,” senior catcher Max McGlone said. “You can’t put it into words. No one thought we were going to be here – maybe even including us, but after we won our first playoff game, we knew it was going to be history from there.”
“This is great,” senior Matt Carr said. “As a senior, we’ve worked out butts off for four years to get to this point, and now that it’s finally here, it’s like – wow, it’s all paid off. This is wonderful.
“We started (the season) out hot, and we had a little bit of a skid midway through the season, and ever since then, I feel like that just motivated us. We saw our true potential, and we took off. We saw that as a bounce-back, and here we are.”
“I was just so hyped,” Greer said. “It’s our first district championship win, and I was just grateful for the opportunity to be able to get here. It was amazing.”
Greer was brilliant on the mound in six shutout innings, allowing only a leadoff single in the sixth. He struck out four and walked two.
“It was amazing,” McGlone said. “He’s unreal, just the way he holds himself, handles himself. It’s tough to put into words. He’s a competitor, and he did his job.”
Greer and Alex Jenkinson – who threw a scoreless seventh – combined for the one-hit shutout against a team that had not been shut out in 24 games this season.
“(I was) just throwing strikes – they couldn’t touch my fastball, so I just kept pounding it in different spots, and it worked,” Greer said. “We’ve never played them before, so we didn’t know what to expect, but we were really confident in what we do and the game we play, so we knew we had a good chance to beat them.
“I’m just trying to keep the runs low, so my team can do the damage with the bats.”
McGlone pointed to Greer’s confidence as the key to his effectiveness in Thursday’s title game.
“We all have so much confidence in each other, and it’s helping us out a lot,” the Bucks’ senior catcher said.
Just where did this confidence come from?
“It started from game one,” Greer said of the Bucks’ 7-6 win over Downingtown West in the district opener. “The first game, to be honest, was probably our hardest game. After we got that, we just took it and ran with it. We’ve been confident all year.”
Greer, who threw 91 pitches – 61 for strikes, struck out four and walked two.
“Sam Greer – the last time he threw on this field he threw a no-hitter against Upper Dublin (last year), so the hit he gave up late in the game, the guys in the dugout were like ‘Oh, I guess that ends the streak,’” West coach Brian Weaver said. “Sam dialed in. I don’t know if he had his best breaking stuff, but when he’s spotting up his fastball, he’s dangerous.
“I think there’s a lot of comfort for him – in the sixth, he’s up in the 80s (pitch count), we know it’s going to be his last inning, and he knows if he can just get out of it, we can turn it over to Jenkinson, and that’s a great feeling to have. He had another great day on the back end.”
Jenkinson allowed one hit in a scoreless seventh.
“Alex has been great all season,” Greer said. “He’s been really a gem out of the bullpen for us. I knew he would get the outs, I knew he would throw strikes and get it done for us.”
The Bucks scored one run in each of the first three innings and added a run in the fifth.
“It was just another day where they kept finding a way inning by inning to put runs up,” Weaver said. “It’s the same pattern the guys have used for the last couple of games – we scored in four different innings.
“We didn’t get the crooked number that we wanted, but even in most of the innings we didn’t score – we still got a guy on base.”
In the top of the first, Kevin Bukowski drew a leadoff walk and moved up to second on Bill Zentmayer’s sacrifice bunt. McGlone’s single plated Bukowski for a run that stood as the game-winner.
Alex Valdes and Quinn Illig led off the second inning with back-to-back singles. Both advanced on Carr’s sacrifice bunt, and Valdes scored on Jack Hogenauer’s sacrifice fly to center for a 2-0 West lead.
In the third, Zentmayer was hit by a pitch, and he scored when Greer helped his own cause with an RBI double to center field. In the fifth inning, Zentmayer led off with a double, and he scored when McGlone followed with a single for a 4-0 lead that held until the final out.
“I thought it was really big in the sixth – they got two outs, and it looked like they got momentum, and we got a couple of (baserunners), and we just kept the line moving,” Weaver said. “My staff has done a great job of scouting every playoff opponent, and we felt– not arrogant – but confident that we had a good idea of what their hitters had done, especially in playoffs.
“This whole weekend, coach (Gabe) Hurtado was putting together scouting sheets and devouring film. Everything he saw, we saw today, and Max McGlone executes our game plan every time. I’m lucky to be surrounded by a staff that works so hard for the kids in ways the players can’t always see.”
Listening to Weaver tell it, the Bucks’ success didn’t just happen.
“Ultimately, it starts with the seniors, and they’re contagious,” the West coach said. “When they came into the program, we had a good year compared to the years that came before, but when they got here, they were a talented bunch.
“They weren’t arrogant, but they were confident they had a shot to be special, and that comes because they work their butts off. They’re all baseball all the time, and they work out when they’re not hitting, and when they’re not working out or hitting, they’re throwing a ball around or throwing bullpens. That became contagious, so when younger guys have gotten here the past two or three years, instead of seeing – ‘This is a down program,’ they’re seeing, ‘Oh, we work hard here,’ ‘Oh, the expectation is that we succeed here.’
“Now you have freshmen and sophomores contributing because the seniors have shown – you’ve got be a baller to hang with us. It’s not just a dead program that is a hobby. Now it’s a destination.”
With the win, the Bucks put their names in West’s record books.
“We were shooting for this ever since we lost in playoffs last year,” Carr said. “We lost in the second round, and we were like – ‘We have to get back. We got a taste of it, we need to get back.’
“We were thinking states all the way, we had the confidence. I dreamed of this as a little kid. I love it. It doesn’t get old. It’s something you’ll think about your whole life. When that ball was in the air and it hit the glove (for the game’s final out), man, it brings back four years, and you think about ‘Wow, I didn’t think we’d be here,’ but here we are. Underdog mentality. Whoever we play, we just go out there and play, we keep playing our game.”
Central Bucks West (19-6, 10-6 SOL) will host District 3 runner-up Wilson in Monday’s opening round of the PIAA 6A Tournament. Wilson fell to Cedar Cliff 7-1 in the district title game.
Central Bucks West 111 010 0 4-9-1
Spring-Ford 000 000 0 0-2-2
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