North Penn, PW, CB West & Upper Dublin were winners in District 1 Tournament action Friday. PW/Abington photos provided courtesy of Kadi Schenk, and North Penn/Quakertown photos courtesy of Kim Supko. Check back for galleries of both games: https://solsports.zenfolio.com/f12122253 (CB West photos courtesy of CB West baseball)
District 1 3A quarterfinals
#2 NORTH PENN 4, #23 QUAKERTOWN 2
What a difference a year makes.
Last year, the Knights were on the outside looking in when district tournament play began. As a result of Friday’s win, they have earned a spot in Tuesday’s district semifinal and have secured a spot in the state tournament.
“Last year, we went 6-10 in the league, a tough, tough year,” Knights’ coach Kevin Manero said. “These guys showed up about three days after the season was over and started setting goals.
“They have been so fun to work with, and to go from that to states is just awesome. We have big goals, and this is just a check box on the list, but it’s a tough, tough game to win, and that’s a very, very inspired Quakertown team right now. I give our guys a lot of credit for showing up to play today.”
Jack Picozzi – who notched the win on the mound – hasn’t forgotten last year’s team meeting.
“That talk was a big motivator for a lot of us,” the Knights’ senior pitcher said. “We were all so disappointed after that season because it was such a down year, but all the work everybody has put in, everybody set goals for themselves, everybody was accomplishing what they wanted to accomplish.
“The results are showing now on the field. We look like a completely different team this year. This is a really, really great group of guys.”
The Knights didn’t find themselves in a win-or-go-home situation Friday, but the stakes were high.
“We just treat it like any other game,” Picozzi said. “There obviously was a lot at stake. We came into this game 100 percent energy all around, but we looked at it as just another game because that’s all we’ve done all year – just play it one game at a time, and it’s worked out for us.”
Picozzi threw 5 2/3 innings to notch the win, allowing three hits and two runs (both unearned) while striking out three and walking three. Henry Wetzel closed out the game,
“It was just staying focused on the mound, working on one pitch at a time, one batter at a time,” Picozzi said. “Just making sure I do everything I can to help our team win.”
“Jack Picozzi answered the call,” Manero said. “Jack’s been good all year – he was great today.
“In those first five innings, he was as good you could ever want a pitcher to be. It’s a hot day. This time of year, there’s a lot of energy, there’s a charged atmosphere. You’re pitching with a lot of effort on every pitch.
“We got him out after (89) pitches, but he did the job and Hank Wetzel came in and was just what you want out of a closer.”
The Knights put two runs on the board in the bottom of the third. James Mangine led off with a double to left field and advanced to third when Mario Sgro legged out a bunt single. Mangine scored on a wild pitch, and Sgro scored on a double steal attempt to put the Knights on top 2-0.
Back-to-back doubles with two outs in the fourth by Wetzel and Mangine (RBI) gave the Knights a 3-0 lead. The Panthers made things interesting with two runs in the top of the sixth. Cooper Natisin drew a leadoff walk, and Vinny Pellegrini followed with a single. With two outs, Tanner Clancy’s single to left skipped past the outfielder, allowing a pair of runs to cross the plate.
“Our field is dry as can be, it’s never been rolled or aerated – it’s in bad shape, it’s dangerous actually,” Manero said. “We work on that – it’s our field, we need to know that, but sometimes you can’t do anything about it. That ball that got through out there was an example, and then they bobbled one that enabled us to score a run. Hopefully, we get one more game on our field and then we can play at neutral sites the rest of the way.”
The Knights added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth. Brady Dolder and Wetzel led off with back-to-back singles, and Dolder scored from second when Mangine lined a single to left – his third hit in as many trips to the plate.
“He was up there in a no-doubt-about-it bunt situation in the sixth, but we just couldn’t bunt him – he’s smoking the ball right now,” Manero said of Mangine, who has six hits in the last two games combined. “He keeps coming up big. He had a couple of really tough games a couple of weeks ago. He just had two really big games in a row in the biggest games of his career.”
In the top of the seventh, Brayden Schuler lined a single to left to lead off the frame, and Dan Qualteria was hit by a pitch. Schuler was erased at third on a fielder’s choice, and Wetzel retired the next two batters on a fly ball to right field and a groundout to close out the game.
Mangine’s 3-for-3 effort with three doubles, two RBIs and a run scored led the Knights. Wetzel also had a multi-hit game, finishing 2-for-3 with a double and run scored.
“They pitched us well, they didn’t give us a lot today, they played good defense,” Manero said. “We would put together a couple real good swings in a row, a couple of not-so-good swings, so we weren’t really stringing good at-bats together. We just had some at the right time, so that prevented us from putting up too big of a crooked number, but answering back in the bottom of the sixth inning – that run was huge. You go up by two in the last inning – the game’s totally different than if you’re up by one. It takes some things off the table. Quakertown is very, very good at playing for a run. They’re tough on the bases, there’s a lot of weapons they have, so that extra run was super important.”
North Penn (18-4, 13-3 SOL) will host #14 Central Bucks West in an All-SOL district semifinal on Tuesday, and Quakertown (11-12, 8-8) will travel to #6 Coatesville in a playback game on Tuesday. The winner will earn a state berth.
Quakertown 000 002 0 2-4-0
North Penn 002 101 x 4-9-1
#5 PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 3, #4 ABINGTON 1
It hadn’t been the spring Lincoln Sharpe envisioned for himself or that PW had hoped for on the pitching mound.
However, Sharpe and the Colonials will take a slow start and return to form if the payout is the type of performance the senior left-hander turned in on Friday. The 6-foot-5 southpaw shook off a pitch-heavy first inning and took command as the Colonials punched their ticket to states with a rubber match win over the Ghosts.
“Both times against them, I felt like we were playing from behind so I was really just trying to command the strike zone, keep us ahead, give us a lead and try to hold it the whole time,” Sharpe said.
Sharpe, who threw 102 pitches in total and came one out away from a complete game, pretty much did it all. He struck out six, walked just two and in a stretch from the second to fifth inning where he faced just one batter over the minimum, picked a runner off at first base to help his cause.
After burning through 26 pitches to get out of the first – stranding two Ghosts on base in the process – Sharpe used just 42 pitches over the next four innings to take control. Long innings have plagued him at times as a pitcher, but he stayed locked in even after throwing 20 pitches to get through the sixth inning.
“I haven’t pitched all that much all season, but I came in with a plan to just throw fastballs, stay ahead, try to command and take control of the game and I think that’s exactly what I did,” Sharpe said.
Sometimes, a catcher’s job includes some soothsaying too. That wasn’t the case for PW backstop Chase Olszyk, who knew even with the high number of first inning pitches that his battery partner was locked in.
Olszyk, who had three hits and made one of the defensive plays of the game by tracking a high pop-up behind the plate and making the catch on the fence, said he and Sharpe didn’t even talk about the first inning. The junior catcher saw Sharpe was a hair off here or a sliver away there from finding the strike zone and knew he would dial in.
“He commanded the fastball, was getting ahead of guys, it was the best he’s looked all year,” Olszyk said. “He got ahead of guys and finished them off.”
PW had at least one runner on base in every inning, but the Colonials only scored in one of them. Olsyzk noted that’s something that will have to change in the next round but in general, he felt the lineup hit the ball pretty well.
Sharpe certainly did in his first at-bat. After a dropped pop-up allowed the batter in front of him to reach base to lead off the second, Sharpe made it hurt by taking a ball for a ride to the deepest part of the field for an RBI double that plated Johnny Giordano.
“It’s a lot of momentum,” Sharpe said. “Coming out of the first inning where I wasn’t great and hitting a double like that, you come out so much more confident. I took that with me throughout the rest of the game.” 
Colin Brady’s one-out double scored Sharpe and Gabe Caucci’s groundout brought Nick DeLucca in to wrap the Colonials’ scoring.
With the way Sharpe was pitching, it was enough.
“He was in about as much command as a guy can get,” Colonials coach Chris Manero said. “After that first inning, I actually checked the pitch count at one point, and I was shocked he was still under 70 pitches. He commanded the zone, his fastball hit its spots today and he used it to set other pitches.
“As coaches, we were basically all on the same page that he was the guy we were going to go to, all his teammates wanted him, they pretty much said it, ‘he’s the guy we want out there.'”
Abington’s day was largely undone by miscues, the Ghosts committing six errors in the field to undermine a pretty strong one-two pitching effort by Calvin Judge and Jack Hoetzel. Judge, who got the start, went four innings and worked out of a first inning jam and stranded a runner at third in the fourth.
Hoetzel, meanwhile, got himself into trouble to start the fifth by loading the bags on a walk, single and error before immediately getting out of that trouble with back-to-back-to-back strikeouts.
The Ghosts (14-7, 12-4 SOL), who saw their bats spark to life in the seventh inning but not enough to recapture the magic of Wednesday’s walk-off win over Harry S Truman, will try to play their way to states starting with a playback game against No. 8 Avon Grove.
PW (16-6, 12-4 SOL) will travel to top seed Spring-Ford, the No. 1 Rams having throttled Avon Grove 13-6 on Friday.
Sharpe hadn’t been the pitcher he expected to be for most of the spring but if that’s the pitcher he’s going to be for this final stretch of the season, it’s a trade he and his team will take.
“Every outing he’s had this year, he progressed a little bit better but hadn’t had that big jump like he finally had today,” Manero said. “He pitched lights out for us in the playoffs last year, and it’s good to have that again right now when we need it the most.”
Plymouth Whitemarsh 030 000 0 3-9-2
Abington 000 000 1 1-5-6
#10 CENTRAL BUCKS WEST 6, #6 COATESVILLE 1
The Bucks are reveling in their underdog role, and on Friday, the Red Raiders were their latest victim. This on the heels of sending third-seeded Methacton home for the season with a 10-0 win on Wednesday.
Friday’s game turned out to be something of a day trip for the Bucks.
“We were a little curious that everybody else played at four, but Coatesville kept the game at 6:45, since it meant we needed to get down there incredibly early to beat Memorial Day traffic,” West coach Brian Weaver said. “But the guys having a few hours to relax and mess around before the game actually was great. As we watched them, they were so loose, and it made us as a staff realize that the pressure of the moment wasn’t getting to them. That’s a maturity there that you can’t teach, 25 guys who are ready for the arena.”
Friday’s win vaulted the Bucks into uncharted territory. They not only will be playing in Tuesday’s district semifinal, but they also punched their ticket to the state tournament.
“I don’t know if West has ever been to states before, but if they have, it’s been at least twenty years,” Weaver said. “The guys are doing a good job of not looking beyond the game in front of them, but I said to them tonight, ‘Twenty years from now, West baseball will still be talking about the ’23 team. Look at what you built.’ The seniors on the team have taken the program from the cellar of the conference to here, and I’m just so proud of them.”
Displaying a maturity beyond his years in Friday’s win was freshman Jacob Greer, who started and threw 6 2/3 innings to earn the win. He scattered six hits and allowed one run, striking out five and walking three.
“Jacob Greer was magnificent,” Weaver said. “For him to come in as a freshman with states on the line and just throw strike after strike, it put us in a strong position from the first moments of the game.
“At the plate, he hit for himself, and goes 1-for-3 with a couple of RBIs. Just rising to the challenge, not letting the stage be too big. Our pitching has been outstanding this week, and a lot of that starts with Bill Evans. He’s our pitching coach and does a nice job managing workload and keeping the guys focused. He’s not an in-your-face guy, he just subtly looks at numbers and tendencies, helps to nudge the pitchers towards stats that matter beyond velocity.”
Julio Ermigiotti got the game’s final out. He entered the game with a run across and the bases loaded and recorded a four-pitch strikeout of Seton Hall commit Magnus Krieger.
The Bucks scored an early run when Greer helped his own cause with a sacrifice fly in the second, plating Will Hogenauer who had walked.
In the fourth, Hogenauer reached base on an error – one of four in the game by the Raiders – and scored when Greer singled to left field, giving the Bucks a 2-0 lead. They stretched that lead to 4-0 with two runs in the fifth, benefitting from a hit batter and another error as well as an RBI single by Alex Valdes and an RBI double by Quinn Illig.
West added two more runs in the sixth despite collecting just one hit – a single by Bill Zentmayer. A 6-0 lead was more than enough to earn the impressive road win.
“Once the game started, we kind of picked up where we left off on Wednesday,” Weaver said. “The guys scored in a bunch of different innings, worked great at-bats up and down the lineup, and I think eight of our nine starters reached base.
“We played a more conservative game on the bases since we were hitting well, but in the sixth, my first base coach, Matt McCarthy, read a tendency and called for a double-steal that was just executed perfectly by Collin McKenna and Bill Zentmayer. That’s one of those things that doesn’t make it in the scorebook as anything other than “SB” but it’s kind of a microcosm of the season – the coaching staff reading the game well and the players executing at a high level.”
While the Red Raiders struggled defensively, the Bucks did not commit an error.
“The guys played shut down defense,” Weaver said. “Three double plays today, all just textbook. And Coatesville likes to bunt, but our guys didn’t start throwing it around. We took the outs they gave us, and Jacob worked around the runners.”
Zentmayer’s 2-for-3 day at the plate with a run scored led the Bucks. Greer was 1-for-3 with two RBIs, Valdes was 1-for-3 with an RBI and two runs, and Illig had a double and RBI.
Central Bucks West (17-6, 10-6 SOL) will face a familiar foe when the Bucks travel to #2 North Penn for Tuesday’s semifinal contest.
“It’s fun to match up with North Penn again,” Weaver said. “It’s a great referendum on our division that the top two teams out of our six schools are playing in the district semis.”
Central Bucks West 010 221 0 6-6-0
Coatesville 000 000 1 1-6-4
District 1 Class 5A
#1 UPPER DUBLIN 6, #12 OXFORD 5
The Flying Cardinals will have a chance to defend a district title they own, thanks to their win over Oxford in Thursday’s semis.
“We always have those goals – I’m sure everybody does,” UD coach Ed Wall said. “Last year at our banquet, we talked about reloading because we knew we still had some pieces of that puzzle from last year, and we had a talented rising junior group, this year’s seniors, that really was a big piece to this season. They had done a job.
“We knew we had some good young talent in (Austin) Dahl, and (Eric) Berman just took it to another level this season.”
There’s nothing quite like a big inning to open the game, and the Cardinals got just that, putting five runs across in the first inning. Jared Levis lined a single to right to lead off the inning, and Berman drew a walk. Joe Levis singled to load the bases.
A single by Dahl brought the first run across, and Aidan McCarthy’s sacrifice fly made it a 2-0 game. Two more runs scored on a costly Oxford miscue, and Bryce Greiner’s line single to right plated the Cardinals’ fifth run.
“I felt like we hit the ball really well all game today,” Wall said. “We only had two strikeouts against a really good pitcher for them in (Thomas) Matuszewski.
“I was really excited to see the quality of contact we had. A lot of it was right at them, but that was some of the best power I’ve seen the guys have. Offensively, I was really happy with how we put the ball in play, and we took advantage of a big miscue. We were running the bases hard. We take pride in doing a lot of the little things and trying to get better at the little things. We were able to scrap together a couple of runs off of that.”
Oxford trimmed UD’s lead to 5-3 with single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings. In the bottom of the sixth, the Cards added an insurance run. Greiner and Bobby Keck collected back-to-back singles to open the inning and both advanced of a sacrifice bunt by Jared Levis. An error on the catcher allowed a run to cross the plate, giving the Cardinals a 6-3 advantge they needed as Oxford scored two in the top of the seventh.
“Oxford has been on a roll,” Wall said. “They had two really big wins (over #5 Interboro and #4 Marple Newtown). We knew they had some power in Matuszewski, and Wyatt is probably one of the better catchers we’ve seen all season. He has a lot of power, and his arm is high quality.
“They put some balls deep, but our park held them, and our outfield once again did a fantastic job tracking them down.”
Three players saw time on the mound for the Cardinals. Jacob Cornbluth started and threw 3 1/3 innings, allowing four hits and two runs. Westley Gill followed and threw 1 2/3 innings, allowing two hits and one run, and Dahl closed it out, allowing two runs in two innings.
“Cornbluth is typically a reliever, but we felt like throwing a lefty against these guys might give us better results contract-wise,” Wall said. “Not that we’re expecting a lot of strikeouts, but we felt like he would do a good job of getting outs for us, and he did that. He worked out of a couple of big jams – he got a double play ball. We couldn’t have been happier getting Jacob into the (fourth).
“Then we brought in two sophomores. We made a decision looking at – who’s not giving up runs? Jacob has given up nine runs all season, and that includes anything he gave up today. Westley has given up two runs, one today. Austin Dahl gave up two runs today, and that’s four on the season. He’s only given up two runs in one other game, and that’s in 26 innings worth of work. That’s what drove our decision making. These guys have been pounding the zone and doing a great job with it. They really stepped up.
“Wes came in in a bases-loaded jam and worked his way out of it with very little damage, and Austin – the same thing. He came out pounding the zone, got a couple of strikeouts That last inning got a little hairy. Thank goodness we pushed across that extra run in the bottom of the fifth. Austin led off with a walk, and you know what happens with those leadoff walks, so it came around to bite us, but he held on. The kid is really tough. In the biggest moments, that’s when he really comes up big for us. I’m really proud of him.”
Leading UD’s eight hit attack were Eric Berman, who was 2-for-2 with a double and run scored, and Greiner, who was 2-for-3 with an RBI.
“Bryce Greiner had two big rips today and kept that lineup going,” Wall said. “Top to bottom, it was a really good effort by our lineup.”
Upper Dublin (16-5, 14-2 SOL) will face #3 Strath Haven on Tuesday (4 p.m.) at Plymouth Township Field. The game is a rematch of last year’s district title game – a 3-2 Upper Dublin win.
Oxford 001 110 2 5-8-4
Upper Dublin 500 001 x 6-8-0
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