Council Rock North and Bensalem were winners and will meet in Thursday’s District One 6A title game. CR North/Downingtown East photos provided courtesy of John Gleeson. Wissahickon/Rustin photos courtesy of Kim Supko. Check back for galleries of both games.
By Jarrad Saffren
Back by popular demand (No one actually said anything. I just know you all enjoyed it.), it’s the five studs of the day! The list even has editorial approval this time!
Four Suburban One League baseball teams played in District One playoff games on Tuesday. Two—Bensalem and Council Rock—advanced to the District One Class 6A championship. The other two—Souderton and Wissahickon—lost in a playback and seeding game, respectively.
Players shined on all four teams, especially Bensalem and CR North. The five who shined most are spotlighted below, in the approved Five Studs of the Day. The four recaps are below that list.
The Five Studs
5. Conlan Wall and Luke Shank, Souderton—Souderton’s season ended on Tuesday, but not because of Wall and Shank. Wall led off, scored three runs, and drove in another. Shank batted second, slammed two hits, and knocked in two runs. They sparked a six-run, 10-hit Souderton attack that fell short by one run in a 7-6 loss.
4. Stephen Aldrich, Bensalem—Bensalem’s ace tossed a five-inning two-hitter, lifting the Owls into their first district championship game. He also struck out five and walked only one. The big righty was the pitching phase of a dominant three-phase effort by the Owls on Tuesday. Bensalem’s defense made no errors behind him, either. That always helps.
3. Nicholas Dean, Bensalem—Dean’s box score really helped me in my high school fantasy baseball league (Ok, I’m not that much of a degenerate. But you get the joke. If there was such a thing as high school fantasy baseball…yada yada yada.): Three RBIs, two hits, one run scored. The kid is known as a pitcher, but like most Bensalem players, he can do multiple things well.
2. Dominic Grady, Bensalem—Grady’s box score helped me even more in my make believe high school fantasy baseball league (For which I am crafting an SOL lineup in my head as we speak.): Four RBIs, three hits, one run scored. Dean and Grady sparked a 10-run, 13-hit Bensalem attack that gave Aldrich ten times the support he needed. Like I alluded to before, Bensalem, on Tuesday, probably turned in the best performance of any SOL team all year.
1. Ryan Stalker, CR North—Bensalem could have won without Aldrich being so dominant, or without the lineup being so explosive. But North would not have won without Stalker, its starting pitcher, on Tuesday. That’s why he ranks ahead of Aldrich, Dean, and Grady. Stalker pitched a complete game without allowing an earned run. He fanned seven, allowed three hits, and walked one. The junior picked up North on a light offensive day (two runs, five hits). To reach a championship, you need one guy to carry you sometimes. Stalker was that guy for North on Tuesday.
Now on to the recaps…
District One Class 6A Semifinals
#5 Bensalem 10, #16 Conestoga 0 (5 innings)
Conestoga was on a Cinderella run, upsetting top seed North Penn and eighth seed Boyertown in its previous two games. Bensalem didn’t give a darn.
I wrote these numbers in the five studs section, but I’ll write them again, because they are that impressive. The Owls pounded 13 hits, scored 10 runs, and made no errors. Starter Stephen Aldrich retired 15 of the 18 batters he faced in five innings. The Owls won by the 10-run rule after the top of the fifth.
A four and a half inning, 10-run rule win in a district semifinal. Pennsbury did something similar in a state semifinal last year, beating Liberty 12-0. The Falcons were rolling, and they ended up winning the state championship. Bensalem is on a similar roll right now, pitching, hitting defense, everything.
And just like Pennsbury in 2017, everyone is contributing for the 2018 Owls. Dean and Grady sparked the offense on Tuesday, but the whole lineup produced.
Brian Swentkowski and Keith Parrish, Bensalem’s first two hitters, both had two hits, one run, and one RBI. Jon Revell posted two hits and two runs. Scott Rooney drove in a run. Nick Fossile, Matt McShane, Austin Shay, and Greg Janowski all scored a run. Every Owl gets a name drop because every Owl deserves one.
Pennsbury won the SOL National title, the district title, and the state title in 2017. Bensalem is one win away from adding the second of those three trophies. The Owls (19-3) will need to beat a league rival—CR North—to add that second big trophy.
Bensalem and North meet on Thursday at 3 p.m. in the district championship, at Villanova Park in Plymouth Meeting.
Conestoga 0-0-0-0-0-X-X 0
Bensalem 0-4-1-5-X-X-X 10
#11 Council Rock North 2, #7 Downingtown East 1
CR North won its third straight playoff game on the road against a higher seed. Now the Indians are going to the district championship for the third time in four years (2015, 2016, 2018). Starter Ryan Stalker was the catalyst on Tuesday, allowing no earned runs in seven innings. The junior is forming a nice tandem with ace Eric Hoefer. 
“Ryan showed why he’s one of our top dogs. He got stronger as the game went on. He started finding pitches in the middle of the game. Once you get into a groove like he did, he’s tough,” said North coach Matt Schram. “He was working on his off speed, mainly his curveball. It wasn’t there for him in the beginning. Then it started to come out of his hand better and it was in the strike zone. He worked through it, which is the sign of a seasoned pitcher. They started guessing because he started doing a better job placing that pitch. When you get them guessing, a lot of times they guess wrong.”
North built a 2-0 lead for Stalker with a run in the fourth and a run in the fifth. In the fourth, Jason Walter grounded out to second, scoring Matt Kinney from third. One inning later, Cavan Tully singled to center, plating Stalker. The Indians didn’t hit much more than that, but they didn’t need to with Stalker on the bump.
Schram’s club has now won two straight games behind great pitching from Hoefer, Stalker and reliever Nolan Hartwell. The program is known for pitching, which helps explain its deep playoff runs. Getting to the ’18 district championship, as an 11 seed, is a great accomplishment in itself. But Schram is not satisfied.
“From a coaching standpoint, there’s excitement. But we also know there’s still a lot of baseball left. That’s the advantage of playing in a league that is so successful,” Schram said. “We just want to keep going game by game. I know that sounds like coach speak but it’s the truth.”
It is both, which is the beauty and irony of coach speak. Anyway, here’s some more coach speak. North (15-6) is playing a familiar foe—Bensalem—in the district championship on Thursday at Villanova Park. Bensalem beat North twice in the regular season, and it’s hard to beat a team three times in one season, as both coaches will surely tell you.
“We don’t want to get beat three times by them,” Schram said. “There’s not a whole lot of scouting reports going on. We know what we’re going to get there. It’s neat to see the representation from our league.”
This also marks the fourth straight year that two SOL teams will meet in the District One championship in the highest classification. Pennsbury beat North Penn last year. North fell to Pennridge in 2016, and beat North Penn in 2015.
“That shows how tough our leagues are,” Schram said. “Now you have two National teams facing each other. That’s a tribute to our league.”
Council Rock North 0-0-0-1-1-0-0 2
Downingtown East 0-0-0-0-1-0-0 1
District One Class 6A Playback
#8 Boyertown 7, #13 Souderton 6
Souderton’s 2018 season is over. The Indians could not hold an early 5-0 lead in this playback semifinal, allowing seven runs, and scoring just one, over the last six innings.
Still, it was a successful season for the Indians. They won a district playoff game, two, actually, for the first time in 11 years.
“I’m very happy for the guys. We haven’t won a playoff game for years,” said Souderton coach Michael Childs. “We wanted to make the state championship (tournament), and we didn’t. But there were a lot of positive accomplishments. Winning the first two rounds in playoffs was big for these guys and can set the tone for the program moving forward.”
Souderton nearly won its last two games as well, as the offense built early leads in both games. But in both games, the lineup failed to counter the opposing pitcher’s adjustments. And the pitching staff allowed the opposing lineup to chip away.
“We went up early and we changed our approach. The kid started throwing curveballs for strikes. In the beginning he was throwing fastballs,” Childs said. “And they are a tough team. They battled back. We couldn’t get timely hits like we needed to, to put them away. We let them hang around and they ended up beating us.”
Wall and Shank had big games for Souderton, as you already know. Luke Barnum played well too, stroking two hits and driving in a run. Ryan Dalton, Moses Clemens, and Jordan Morales all scored runs.
Souderton finished the season with a 15-8 record.
Souderton 1-4-0-0-0-1-0 6
Boyertown 0-2-2-1-0-0-2 7
District One Class 5A Third-Place Game
#12 West Chester Rustin 5, #7 Wissahickon 4
Wissahickon surrendered three runs in the last two innings, turning a 4-2 lead into a one-run loss. With the loss, the Trojans will be the fourth seed from District One in the state tournament. Coach Andy Noga is ok with that, and with how this game went down.
“It was a good baseball game. Just some timely hitting for them, and unfortunately, we didn’t score enough. We got a bunch of guys in, which was good to see. It was a clean baseball game. It just didn’t go our way,” Noga said. “We feel confident going into states. We feel like we have the pitching to survive and advance. Our four pitchers today all threw fairly well, so we feel like we are set up to make a big run here.”
Wissahickon pitchers Quinn Rovner and Grayson Lovitz both gave up no earned runs in two innings. Wissahickon hitters Michael Steitz, Andrew Booth, Matt Repko, and Tyler Caso all scored runs. Caso and Joe Hornig each doubled and had two RBIs. Hornig led the Trojans with two hits.
The Trojans (14-8) will open the state tournament on Monday against the District Two champion.
West Chester Rustin 1-0-1-0-0-1-2 5
Wissahickon 0-0-0-4-0-0-0 4
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