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ROYERSFORD – Eric Ruth isn’t big on displaying emotion, but when he froze the Council Rock North batter for a called third strike and the final out in North Penn’s 2-1 win in Saturday’s PIAA Class AAAA quarterfinal contest, the Knights’ senior mound ace clenched his fist in celebration.
“I was excited,” Ruth said. “I just felt great. My adrenalin was pumping. It was a close game, and they’re a good team.
“The bottom of the order was up, so I just came out firing.”Ruth was working on four days rest after his dazzling 16-strikeout effort in Monday’s 6-0 win over Chambersburg. He insists he didn’t feel 100 percent.
But don’t try telling the Indians that.
Ruth allowed just four hits, and one of those was a bunt single, and he still had enough gas in the tank to fan the side in the seventh, putting an exclamation point on the Knights’ impressive win.
“What can you say?” North Penn coach Bob McCreary said. “He’s just done a phenomenal job all year, and he’s just gotten better as the year went on.
“Sixteen strikeouts the last game, and then he comes out today - some pitchers if they’re not getting all the strikeouts, they think they’re not doing well, but he just hit his spots, and said, ‘Alright, it’s not a strikeout kind of day.’”
Ruth relied mainly on his fastball in Saturday’s outing at Spring-Ford High School.
“I was working the outside corner, jammed a couple of guys,” he said. “I was letting them put the ball in play. I wasn’t trying to overpower them today.
“I left my fielders make the plays.”
Ruth fanned seven, and the Knights made all the plays behind him. Take away a two-out error in the second that didn’t do any harm, and the Knights were perfect.
Anything less wouldn’t have been good enough against a Rock North squad that also went with their mound ace, Scott Runzer.
The West Chester-bound senior was coming off a four-hit effort in the Indians’ 6-2 win over Central in Monday’s opening round, and although the Knights touched him for nine on Saturday, the Indians turned four double plays behind him.“He’s a competitor, he’s an athlete,” Rock North coach Dan Kusters said of Runzer. “We were confident with Scotty coming in and throwing today.
“We knew it was going to be a great ball game. We knew they had a bunch of very good ball players that can really do a good job swinging the bats and throwing the ball. We knew it was going to be a battle today, and it was. It was a great high school game.”
Both teams had an opportunity to use their number one pitchers since the game was postponed twice because of rain, first on Thursday and then on Friday.
“We knew he (Ruth) was a good pitcher,” said Rock North’s Matt Hone. “We hit him, but we just didn’t get the runs across that we had to.
“I thought our matchup with Kelly (Adams) against their number two (Mike Bradstreet) was better, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The loss brought to an end a memorable post-season run for the district runner-up Indians.
“I’m exceptionally proud,” Kusters said. “You take a look at how they started playing baseball in May and June. It’s pretty impressive what they were able to put together.
“They got better as the competition got stiffer and as we got deeper into the season. That’s what you ask of your team – you want them to get better and start playing their best baseball at the end of the season.”
“We knew the end was near,” Hone said of the Indians’ late surge. “We didn’t want it to be over.”
Saturday’s game came down to the little things. And the not-so-little things.
For the Knights, executing a suicide squeeze with two strikes just might have been the difference between winning and losing.In the top of the third, Jimmy Smith ripped a leadoff double to the fence in left center. He moved up to third on Jake Dunn’s grounder to the right side, and then Mark Grassie stepped to the plate for perhaps the game’s most dramatic at-bat.
With Smith racing toward home on back-to-back suicide squeeze plays, the Knights’ second baseman was forced to chase a pair of high fastballs. He got a piece of the first, protecting the base runner, but he missed the second. No one, however, was covering third on the play, and Smith was able to beat the third baseman to the bag.
“They were fastballs, and they kind of rode away,” Grassie said. “I couldn’t seem to be able to reach out and get them. I tried.”
Would McCreary dare call for the squeeze a third time?
You bet.
“I knew that coach McCreary had confidence in me to get bunts down,” Grassie said. “I have been bunting a lot the whole year. He really believes I can do it.
“I’ve actually bunted with two strikes a couple of times this year. I knew there were two strikes, but I really wasn’t that nervous. I felt really confident.”
That confidence was well-founded.
Grassie laid down a bunt just off the mound that brought Smith home with the game’s first run.
“He’s a good fundamental player,” McCreary said of Grassie. “As a nine hitter, you look for him to put his bat on the ball. I just kind of had a gut (feeling) to try a suicide squeeze there.
“It didn’t work out the first couple of times. I said, ‘What the heck – try again.’ Thankfully for us, it worked.”
Smith acknowledged that Grassie’s RBI bunt loomed large.
“It definitely is a rush over there when you get the squeeze call with two strikes,” he said. “Thank Grassie for putting that perfect bunt down to bring me in.
“It definitely helped to get that run across early – just putting pressure on their defense. They put together a great game.”
Rock North had an immediate answer, scoring the equalizer in the bottom of the third. Lee Marvel lined a lead-off single to right, and Jesse Goldberg’s bunt over the charging Knight third baseman fell in for a single that put a pair on board with none out.
Both runners moved up on Hone’s sacrifice bunt, and Marvel raced home on Tyler Farrel’s groundout, knotting the score 1-1.
Ruth uncharacteristically walked a pair in the fourth, but he escaped unscathed, thanks in part to a nice catch by first baseman Scott Christy with his back to the infield of a foul popup near the fence for the inning’s second out.
In the fifth, North Penn’s Christian Radick grounded a leadoff single to left, and he moved up to second on Craig Lepre’s sacrifice bunt. He scored when Smith delivered a line single to right, putting the Knights on top 2-1.
That lead looked tenuous when Rock North’s Kelly Adams roped a one-out triple off the right field fence in the sixth. But then came back-to-back bunts by the Indians that didn’t exactly bring the desired result.
Ruth fielded Ryan Venner’s safety squeeze and - after looking Adams back to third - threw to first for the out. The Knights’ mound ace fielded Mike Filer’s bunt and fired to first for the inning’s final out.
“Ruth throws the ball very well,” Kusters said of his decision to call for the two bunts. “He was not necessarily throwing the ball by our guys. We had four hits, and one of them was a bunt single.
“In that situation, with a runner on third – not that I didn’t have confidence in Timmy, but he’s a very good bunter, and I knew he had a chance because that third baseman was so far back.”
The Indians were never heard from again as Ruth took care of business in the seventh with three straight strikeouts.
“It’s really tough,” said Hone. “I have been playing with these guys my whole life, and it just ended our season, which we thought should be going farther.
“It was a lot of fun.”
EXTRA INNINGS: While the Knights’ one through six batters were a combined 3-for-15, their seven, eight and nine hitters were a combined 6-for-9 with a pair of RBIs and a run scored. Smith, Dunn and Grassie each had two hits. “This time of year you need contributions from a lot of different people,” McCreary said. “They’re going to do everything they can to shut down your better hitters, so that’s when guys need to step up like a Grassie or a Smith, and today they did.”
NORTH PENN 2, COUNCIL ROCK NORTH 1
North Penn 001 010 0-2
Council Rock North 001 000 0-1
North Penn: Robbie Zinsmeister ss 3 0 0 0; Justin Davey cf 3 0 1 0; Scott Christy 1b 2 0 0 0; Greg Fasick pr 0 0 0 0; Matt Albaugh c 3 0 1 0; Brendon Martinez cr 0 0 0 0; Christian Radick rf 3 1 1 0; Craig Lepre dh 1 0 0 0; Eric Ruth p 0 0 0 0; Jimmy Smith 3b 3 1 2 1; Jake Dunn lf 3 0 2 0; Mark Grassie 2b 3 0 2 1. TOTALS 24 2 9 2
Council Rock North: Matt Hone ss 2 0 1 0; Tyler Farrell c 3 0 0 1; Scott Runzer p 3 0 0 0; Kelly Adams cf 2 0 1 0; Ryan Venner dh 3 0 0 0; Ryan Maley 3b 0 0 0 0; Tim Filer 1b 3 0 0 0; Ryan Harley 2b 2 0 0 0; Lee Marvel lf 3 1 1 0; Jesse Goldberg rf 2 0 1 0; Dan Denton ph 1 0 0 0. TOTALS 24 1 4 1.
E-CR North 1, NP 1. DP-CR North 4, NP 1.LOB-NP 4, CR North 5. 2B-Jimmy Smith. 3B-Kelly Adams. SAC-Craig Lepre, Matt Hone, Ryan Venner.
IP H R ER BB SO
North Penn
Ruth (W) 7 4 1 1 2 7
Council Rock North
Runzer (L) 7 9 2 2 2 5
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