Hatboro-Horsham earned a trip to the PIAA 6A Tournament with a hard-fought win over Souderton. Pennsbury dropped its third place game to Coatesville. HH/Souderton photos provided courtesy of Tracy Valko. Pennsbury/ Coatesville photos courtesy of Darryl Rule of J&D Photography. Check back for galleries of both games.
District One 6A playback
#2 HATBORO-HORSHAM 3, #4 SOUDERTON 2 (8 innings)
Trey Porter – scheduled to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning in a tie ballgame – asked coach Pete Moore if he should take the first pitch.
“In most games, we take the first pitch when we’re tied,” Porter said. “He said, ‘It’s up to you.’ I knew he had been throwing that slider first pitch, and I felt I had a good plate appearance my last at-bat, so I said, ‘If he hangs it, I really want to destroy it.’ He was like – ‘Go for it.’”
Porter went for it, ripping the first pitch he saw to left field for a leadoff double.
“Especially leading off – knowing that first pitch is going to be the best pitch, it sets the tone, which is huge,” Porter said.
Three batters and two intentional walks later, Will Bruner lined a base hit to deep center field, easily scoring Porter for the walk-off win and ensuring the Hatters a berth in the PIAA 6A State Tournament. It is their second consecutive trip to states.
“It really means a lot,” Porter said. “Especially with all the work that we put in this winter, not having some key seniors coming back and gaining new pitchers too.”
While Porter and Bruner stole the spotlight in the eighth, Cole Fisher kept the Hatters in the game with a stellar outing on the mound. In 7 2/3 innings (he was lifted for Stephen Plefka with two outs in the top of the eighth after reaching his pitch count), Fisher scattered seven hits and allowed two runs. He struck out nine and walked two.
“We knew going into today it was going to be a dogfight,” Fisher said. “We knew it was going to be low scoring, and it was going to be a matter of one or two plays that would win us the game.
“Luckily, I think we executed the small ball really well today, and that allowed us to get the first two runs. Our goal all along was to get (to states), and when we get there to not be satisfied and go and make some noise. Being a senior and throwing today, I wasn’t ready to be done. We have a lot left to prove, and I wanted at least one more game, so that was huge to see as a senior. I don’t want the ride to be over.”
The game plan, according to Fisher was to work the hitters backwards.
“The key was to get my three off-speed pitches in the zone for strikes early on in the count, and I believe I did that,” the Hatters’ ace said. “That was the main thing for me – getting ahead early in the count with my off-speed stuff so then I could pitch them backwards, and then my fastball would be more effective throughout the day.”
Making Fisher’s performance even more impressive is that his back-to-back strong outings came on the heels of being sidelined with a hamstring injury.
“When I got hurt, I felt I was pitching the best I had all year and just starting to get in the swing of things hitting the ball too,” Fisher said. 
“So it was really frustrating to have to sit down and just watch from the sidelines.
“It was really nice to see that even when I did go out that our team won every game in that stretch, so that was good to see. That helped ease the pain of not playing.”
Moore rolled the dice and elected to save Fisher for Thursday’s must-win contest even though he was ready, willing and able to go on Tuesday in a playback game against Perkiomen Valley the Hatters also had to win.
“I wasn’t really sure about it at first, but I trusted my coach’s decision because I know we have a really intelligent coaching staff, so I trusted them every step of the way, and I said, ‘Hey if you want to hold me out, let’s do it,’” Fisher said. “I was originally planning on throwing Tuesday, but they thought there was a better game plan, so I trusted them every step of the way and had confidence coming into today that I could take my team to the next step.”
Moore’s confidence in his ace is well-founded.
“He’s incredible,” the Hatters’ coach said of Fisher. “He is the epitome of a competitor, and he just steps up to whatever challenge is put in front of him. He was awesome today and delivered everything that we needed him to deliver.
“I’ve coached 21 years, and I’ve never saved my ace for a team before today. We did it, and it worked out. Our coaching staff went back and forth a million times. The thing that allowed us to do it was Trey Porter.”
It was Porter’s effort on the mound in Tuesday’s win over Perk Valley that vaulted the Hatters into Thursday’s playback.
“I love those situations actually,” Porter said. “I know my last appearance I came in relief against Coatesville, and I definitely didn’t do as well.
“I felt great (Tuesday). I prepared the night before, but going into that day, I definitely felt a lot more confident that I was going to have a better start. I found a change-up in the bullpen before the game which was huge in that game.”
A look back at the eighth inning of Thursday’s game would show that Porter was the catalyst with his leadoff double.
“Trey and I were talking before the inning, and he asked me if he should take a strike, and I said, ‘No,’” Moore said. “He said, ‘All right, if I get a pitch I can hit, I’m going to destroy it.’ I said, ‘Do it.’
“The guy we faced today (Jackson Morrisette) was tremendous. That was maybe one mistake out of two or three made the entire game. That’s impressive in a high school game. Trey got a pitch he could hit, he hit it hard for a double down the line.”
With Porter on second, Moore called on Jack Elwell to lay down a sacrifice bunt.
“Jack Elwell is about as good a high school player as you could wish to have,” the Hatters’ coach said. “He’s unselfish and wanted to do what was right for the team. He laid down a bunt, got him over and there we sat with Trey Porter on third, one out and the middle of our lineup up.”
Coach Mike Childs elected to intentionally walk the next two batters – Fisher and Nick Katherine – to load the bases with one out. That brought Bruner to the plate, and he hit a shot to deep center field that plated the game-winner.
“It was a really difficult position for Souderton,” Moore said. “Looking back on it, my coaching staff and I sat down afterwards and tried to think through – ‘What would we do in that situation?’ I don’t know what I’d do. It just worked out for us that Will Bruner is a guy that we love in big situations, and he got to come up with the game on the line, and he delivered. It almost went over the fence. At first, we couldn’t tell it was a ground rule double or if it went over, but it didn’t matter. We won the game.”
Earlier in the contest, the Hatters took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third when Noah Schlosser, who lined a double to center to lead off the inning, scored on Porter’s sacrifice fly to left.
“Noah Schlosser – the kid is just a big game player,” Moore said. “He had a couple of really good at-bats early in the game that set the tone for us.
“Up and down the lineup, everybody did things. We executed little things. We practiced all the little things so much lately, and they performed today.”
In the fourth, the Hatters upped their lead to 2-0. Fisher led off the inning with a single, and his courtesy runner, Kyle Dittus, came around to score on an error.
The Indians answered with two runs in the top of the fifth. Andrew Schatz doubled to right to lead off the inning, and Kaden Pasternak followed with a line drive single to center. Schatz scored on Shanley Wall’s ground out, and Chris McKenna’s single drove in Pasternak, knotting the score 2-2. Neither team scored again until the eighth when the Hatters won it and punched their ticket to the state tournament for the second time in as many years.
Morrisette turned in a solid outing on the mound for the Indians, allowing six hits and three runs (two earned) while striking out four and walking two.
At the plate, Porter (2-for-3, 2B, R, RBI) and Bruner (2-for-3, RBI) led the Hatters. Pasternak was the lone Souderton player with two hits.
Souderton and Hatboro-Horsham are hardly strangers to each other. The two teams scrimmaged during their spring break trip to Maryland.
“I think we all felt we would see them deep in a playoff run, and we did,” Fisher said. “It was a shame one of us had to go home. It was a really competitive game and really fun to play.”
“(Souderton coach) Mike Childs and I have been through a million battles between the two teams that we coach,” Moore said. “We used to be in the same league. A ton of respect for him and his program and as classy as they are – they were classy all the way through.
“It was a battle back and forth. They were a really good team, and they deserved to keep playing together the way that we deserve to keep playing together. District One is an extremely talented district. If things had gone differently or if the draw had gone differently, we could have met at a different point in the tournament. Unfortunately, it turned out that one of us had to stay, and one of us had to go. We were fortunate enough to move on, but Souderton is a very talented and deserving team as well. We weren’t playing for two more days together. We were playing to keep this thing rolling. We knew how good Souderton was, how few runs they allow. Nothing against Garnet Valley, who Souderton was playing, but we knew Souderton was a team we potentially would have to beat, and it worked out.”
Hatboro-Horsham (19-4, 15-1 SOL) will face District 3 champion Warwick in Monday’s opening round of the PIAA 6A State Tournament.
“We don’t have a set plan yet, but I’ve made my coach aware that I’ll be ready to go,” Fisher said. “We laugh about it all the time. I told him, ‘I’m ready to go Monday.’ He looked at me and said, ‘We see how you feel,’ and I said, ‘No, I’ll be ready to go,’ so I think we both have an idea what will happen Monday, but there’s nothing set in stone yet because we have to see what their game plan is.”
Souderton (14-2 SOL) closed out its successful season with the SOL Colonial Division championship and an overall record of 19-5.
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District One 6A third place game
#7 COATESVILLE 4, #5 PENNSBURY 3 (9 innings)
It took nine innings to determine a winner in a contest for seeding purposes. Both teams used the opportunity to give plenty of players time on the diamond. Pennsbury used four pitchers while the
visiting Red Raiders used five. Sixteen players got at-bats for the Falcons, who saw the game slip away when Coatesville scored an unearned run in the top of the ninth.
Coatesville took a 2-0 lead in the third inning only to watch the Falcons scored three unanswered runs – one in the fourth inning and two in the fifth inning. In the fourth, James Schaffer lined a single to left to lead off the inning, and Callan Fang drew a walk. A one-out error plated Schaffer.
In the fifth, Chase Stover grounded a one-out single to left, and Schaffer was safe on an error. With two outs, Ryan Zuckerman lined a single to right that plated a pair and put the Falcons on top 3-2. The Red Raiders evened the score in the top of the sixth and then won it in the ninth.
Schaffer scored a pair of runs while Stover, who was 1-for-1, scored the other.
Pennsbury (15-5, 13-3 SOL) will face the District 12 champion in Monday’s opening round of the PIAA 6A State Tournament.
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