Indians Baseball edged Knights Baseball 2-1 in eight innings to win the title of the Bux-Mont Baseball Classic Wednesday. Photos provided courtesy of Kathy Leister Photography. Check back for a gallery of photos.
INDIANS BASEBALL 2, KNIGHTS BASEBALL 1 (8 innings)
What could have been.
Indians Baseball and Knights Baseball gave the large and spirited crowd in attendance at Wednesday’s Bux-Mont Classic title game at Harleysville Community Center a glimpse of what might have been if the 2020 spring season hadn’t been cancelled.
“When you have two good programs that have success and the kids are all hyped up - it’s a crosstown rival,” Indians’ Baseball coach Mike Childs said. “This game is huge.
“It’s the excitement. You see tonight - it’s great for the community. It was just an awesome thing. Even if we lost this game, it’s great to see.”
Childs called the Bux-Mont Classic his team’s mini defense of its 2019 PIAA 6A state title. It wasn’t quite that, but there was no mistaking this game meant a whole lot to both sides.
“It’s bittersweet,” rising senior Jake Horton said. “We know that we would have seen North Penn deep into the district tournament. We know if we can beat them we can probably beat anyone in the state honestly, and it’s really sad we couldn’t do it again and get another banner up there.”
“Not being able to have our senior season, this means a ton,” recent Souderton grad Conlan Wall said. “This was kind of our mini defense of our state title. We were able to come in our conference tournament and beat everybody.”
In the end, it came down to a bunt and a miscue. Isaac Frye and Horton drew back-to-back walks to open the eighth, and Frye raced home with the game-winner on an errant throw to first on Ryan Canfield’s bunt.
“Of all things – a bunt,” Childs said. “I hate bunting, but I understand we had to do it. It’s supposed to be fun.
“I said them in the bottom of the sixth – ‘Do we want to hit away or do we want to play to win it?’ They said, ‘Coach, we want to win it.’ I left everything up to them. It’s supposed to be a fun opportunity and it worked out for us.”
“I was playing this tournament to win it, and I’m sure that’s the only thing that everyone else was thinking,” recent Souderton grad Brian Reiner said. “Our team isn’t really too familiar with losing. Losing is not really in our dictionary.”
The Indians won it despite managing just one hit, and they needed Wall to beat the throw to first on what could have been a game-ending double play in the seventh, allowing the tying run to cross the plate.
“That was intense,” said Wall, who stepped to the plate with one out and the bases loaded. “I’ve had a rough game this game, but I knew when I had two strikes on me I just had to put it in play, so that’s what I did.
“I saw I hit it hard to the second baseman, and I was like, ‘Oh crap,’ but I hauled it down to first base and barely beat it out, but thankfully I did.”
Earlier Eliot Majka lined a single to left to lead off the inning, and it was safe all around when David Overpeck’s sacrifice bunt was bobbled. Majka was thrown out at the plate on Matt Benner’s grounder to third, and another miscue on Zach Crouthamel’s slow roller loaded the bases.
That set the stage for Wall, who hit a sharp grounder to second that looked as though it would end the game, but the Indians’ speedy leadoff batter somehow beat the throw to first while Overpeck crossed the plate with the tying run, setting off a jubilant celebration.
“Once again the fireplug,” Childs said of Wall. “He had to beat it out. Thank god we had him running the bases with speed. He’s a competitor, and he’s another one that will be missed along with all the seniors. It was definitely a fun game without a doubt.”
While Indians Baseball escaped with the extra inning win, no one’s star shown brighter in Wednesday’s game than Bloomsburg University bound Kolby Barrow, who started for Knights Baseball and mowed down the only 12 batters he faced in four dazzling innings. He struck out seven, 
keeping the Indians off balance with a nasty curveball.
“Baseball is actually a really simple game,” Knights Baseball coach Kevin Manero said. “When you throw quality strikes and you repeat strikes, it makes it very difficult for teams to do much damage off of you.
“When you throw two pitches for strikes and you keep guys off balance, you become a star. When you don’t do those things at this level, it’s hard to find success. I think that was pretty apparent throughout the game tonight on both sides.”
Manero removed Barrow – who had thrown 50 pitches in his first extended outing - after four innings.
“It was hard,” Barrow said of leaving the game. “He put a pitch limit on me, and I said, ‘All right.’ Then I came back and said, ‘You know what – I want to go back out there, win that game, go as far as I can,’ but it was a smart decision for my health after getting injured last year - not overthrowing before I head up to college. He said if he kept me out there, he would have kept me in the whole game.”
The Indians’ were not sorry to see Barrow leave the game.
“He’s an amazing pitcher,” Wall said. “I’ve played with him countless times. He’s my teammate on the (PA) Shockers, and he’s an incredible pitcher. He spots up so well. We weren’t able to touch him, so thank god he was at his pitch limit.”
For Barrow, the opportunity to start the game on the mound was significant after being relegated to the role of designated hitter his junior season due to an injury.
“It meant a lot just to play with these guys, give it my all and show them that I’m here,” Barrow said. “It was a feeling of joy just getting out there and leaving it all on the field.”
“I play with (some of the Indians) in the summer and I know most of them. Congrats to them. I’m happy for them, but I wanted that win. Seventh inning 1-0 it’s hard to leave it like that.”
Not to be overlooked was the glittering effort of Horton, who entered the game in the sixth with his team trailing 1-0. He proceeded to strike out 
the side and retired nine of 10 batters he faced in three scoreless innings. A two-out walk in the eighth was the Knights’ lone base runner. Horton struck out the next batter he faced to close out the inning.
“On the mound, I have the mentality to put it all out on the field,” Horton said. “I just do that and let the defense get my back. I just throw strikes and let them do what they can. It usually works out.”
Knights Baseball scored its only run in the first when Evin Sullivan, who led off the game with a double, scored on a sacrifice fly to center by RJ Agriss.
Senior Joseph Fresta threw a scoreless third, and Crouthamel did not allow a run in two innings, escaping a bases-loaded one-out jam in the fifth with a force out at the plate and a strikeout.
With Barrow out of the game, Manero went deep in his bullpen, using seven pitchers over the last four innings. Dylan Brown entered the game with two on and none out in the fifth and struck out three of the four batters he faced.
“The pitchers on their team were doing really well – they were spotting up,” Horton said. “Everyone was saying, ‘Take it to the opposite field,’ but everyone just wanted to be the hero, I guess.
“Everyone came together in the last inning, and everyone cheered each other on. It was good.”
“They put up a really good battle,” Reiner said of the Knights. “Kolby Barrow is an insane pitcher, he’s very good.”
Indians Baseball played flawless defense in the win and benefitted from some rare Knight miscues to win it.
“No one has had the reps,” Childs said. “It’s like in the early spring – the pitchers are going to dominate and the hitters are lacking. Today we were lacking hits, but we took advantage of the mistakes they had.
“No one has a chance to practice this stuff. It just went in our favor. We’re happy about it.”
Inaugural Bux-Mont Classic a success
The idea of holding a tournament independent of high school baseball to give seniors an opportunity to play after missing their spring season was undeniably a good one.
Making sure it happened took considerable planning, and Kevin Manero was the catalyst.
The turnout at all of the games, most notably Wednesday’s title game, suggested that the players weren’t the only ones who missed baseball.
“The level of things tonight - the size of the crowd, the energy here for an early August baseball game was awesome,” Manero said. “I think it worked out exactly the way we wanted it to. It would have been nice to win the last game, but as far as the whole tournament goes, it was awesome.”
And – though it sounds cliché – there really were no losers on this night.
“It’s great to be able to come out here for two-and-a-half hours and never look at my phone once and not know what’s going on around the world and not see a death toll on TV,” Manero said. “That stuff’s all serious, and it’s all real, but baseball has always been an escape from those types of things.
“You can’t escape the world permanently, but you can come here for two hours and get your energy going, get your sweat going a little bit. You can hear everybody pulling for the same thing and everybody is on the same page. It’s a very invigorating feeling, and it’s hard to duplicate that anywhere but on the baseball field.”
Knights baseball bids farewell to 13 seniors
Saying good-bye is never easy, and emotions ran high after Wednesday’s game, especially for a Knights Baseball squad that included 13 seniors.
“It’s never easy to see a team go, but these guys – they just did everything right,” Manero said of his seniors. “There’s a lot of emotion because.jpg)
they care about the game, they care about what they do.
“The emotion is raw because the kids care a lot. I know baseball is not the most important thing in the world, but…what is the most important thing in the world? (It’s) putting everything you have in the things you love, finding ways to surround yourself in life with things that are important to you, being able to be a really good student so you have those opportunities. That’s what they did.
“They’re such great examples in everything they do. There are so many guys here that I’m going to talk about for years to come as far as how you should carry yourself, how you should conduct yourself, how you should lead, and when you have those qualities, it’s hard to say good-bye.”
While the seniors missed their final high school season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they did play a full schedule during the fall league, which has been cancelled this year.
“I take a lot of pride in our offseason,” Manero said. “I know that our entire team does. This year, for example, we finished 16-2. We went 14-0 in the fall league and we went 2-2 in this tournament, so even though it wasn’t the season, we played 18 games. There are a lot of programs out there that wouldn’t play 18 games even if they had a season. Everything we do over the course of the year – we’re going to find new creative ways to do that in a safe environment. We don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, but we get to work on that tomorrow.”
Knights Baseball 100 000 00 1-4-3
Indians Baseball 000 000 11 2-1-0
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