Four SOL teams advanced to the District One AAAA semifinals on Tuesday. To view photos of the Hatboro Horsham/Downingtown West and CB South/CB West games, please visit the Photo Gallery.
By Scott Huff
The PIAA District One Quad-A Final Four will be an All-Suburban One League competition as [N-1] Council Rock South, [N-2] Hatboro-Horsham, [N-3] Upper Dublin, and [N-12] Central Bucks South all advanced with quarterfinal victories.
The district semifinal round will be played on Tuesday (5/29) and will showcase Council Rock South (SOL National Conference champion) versus Upper Dublin (SOL American Conference co-champion) at Temple-Ambler campus - 4 pm. The other semifinal contest will be played at Glen Mills at 4 pm between SOL Continental Conference champion Hatboro-Horsham and fellow SOL Continental Conference contender CB South.
CR South, Hatboro-Horsham, Upper Dublin, and CB South have earned four of the five District One berths in the upcoming PIAA state playoffs. [N-8] Central Bucks West will compete with [S-12] Coatesville, [S-3] Downingtown West, and [N-7] Methacton in a playback tournament for the fifth and final state playoff berth.
CB West will play Downingtown West, while Methacton will face Coatesville. The winners of those two games will meet for the final District One playoff slot.
Central Bucks South Receives Titan Effort
Central Bucks South ace – Bobby Witteman – trumped Central Bucks West ace – Marty Martens – as the Titans edged the Bucks 3-2 in a District One Quad-A playoff pitching classic. The game was played at CB South due to poor field conditions at CB West, but the Titans were still the home team in the scorebook.
“Both Bobby and Marty have been two of the best pitchers recently,” said Central Bucks South head coach Mike Schaefer. “Any time that Marty is on the mound, CB West has a good chance of winning the game. Bobby has been that pitcher for us recently, and the two of them pitched very well.”
Witteman threw a gem of a complete game with six strikeouts, while Martens threw an equally fine complete game and collected nine strikeouts.
The Titans scored a run in the top of the seventh inning to capture the win. Kyle Lewis doubled and the winning run came one out later on a sacrifice fly off the bat of sophomore Matt Radwanski. Jon Mullin had blasted a homerun earlier in the game.
“To beat CB West was an emotional win personally for me,” said Schaefer who coached at CB West. “It took me back to 2004 when we were in districts. Beating West is always tough for me, and I would like to see them come back and get that fifth playoff spot.
“I knew before the season that we had a good baseball team,” added Schaefer. “We had some struggles during the middle of the season, but we played well at the end of the season and got that spot in the playoffs.
“We told the kids that this was the first team at South to get into the state playoffs,” continued Schaefer. “We can play a little looser knowing we are in the playoffs. But we still want a district championship, and Hatboro-Horsham (the next Titan opponent) beat us twice during the season.
“We beat the defending state champion (Conestoga), we beat the defending district champion (Spring-Ford) and we beat a pitcher that no-hit us during the year (Marty Martens),” added Schafer. “Maybe this is just our time.”
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Central Bucks West Bucks 000 101 0 - 2 4 0
Hatters Continue To Pull Victories Out Of Their Hat
Hatboro-Horsham scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to defeat visiting Downingtown West in its PIAA District One Quad-A quarterfinal game - 8-7. The Hatters scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to defeat West Chester Rustin 5-4 in their second round game.
“This seems to be the trademark of this team,” said Hatboro-Horsham head coach Peter Moore. “I got the players together before the inning and asked who it was going to be that got the big hit to win the game. This team just refuses to give up late in games.”
Andrew Keehn, Casey Saverio, Chris Hens, and Grant Opalisky all contributed to the game-winning rally. Saverio collected three hits and two RBI, while Hens had two hits and three RBI.
Connor Crookham was the winning pitcher for the Hatters. Zach Grim threw four terrific innings of relief allowing just a single hit to keep the game close.
Downingtown West – which routed Bensalem 10-0 in its second round game – scored five runs in the first inning and led 6-2 after two and one-half innings. But Hatboro-Horsham rallied for four runs in the third inning, and scored the game winners in the seventh frame to move on.
“We gave up the five runs, but we came right back and 
scored two of our own in the first inning,” said Moore. “Being down three runs is manageable, and we were able to make that comeback.
“Now we get Central Bucks South in the semifinals, and we were able to beat them twice during the regular season,” added Moore. “But what we did in the regular season doesn’t matter. The game on Tuesday is the one that is going to count the most.
“Central Bucks South might have been the last team to get in, but there is no question that they deserve to be right where they are,” continued Moore. “They have an excellent baseball team.
“If you don’t bring your ‘A’ game against a team from our conference, you are going to lose,” added Moore. “It’s a shame we have to play the game an hour or more away (at Glen Mills), but we’re glad to still be playing baseball.”
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Hatboro-Horsham Hatters 204 000 2 - 8 10 1
Flying Cardinals Soar to Playoff Victory
Upper Dublin scored four runs in its last at-bat as the Flying Cardinals rallied from a 5-1 deficit to defeat visiting Methacton – 8-5. The win earns the Flying Cardinals a semifinal PIAA District One playoff date with Council Rock North on Tuesday.
“The fifth, sixth, and seventh innings have been good ones for us this entire year,” said Upper Dublin head coach Ed Wall. “These last couple of days have been crazy games for us, but we seem to answer back when we have to answer back.”
Upper Dublin trailed [N-11] Wissahickon 3-0 and staged a rally to win 4-3 in the ninth inning in a suspended game that was completed Thursday.
“We fell behind and had to make a pitching change, and that seemed to be what we needed to make the comeback,” said Wall as Zach Walsh came into the game and allowed just one hit over the final five and two-third innings for the Cardinals. “Walsh had great movement and kept them off-balance. Zach doesn’t throw real hard, but his breaking stuff stopped their offense cold.”
The key RBI hits for the Cardinals in the sixth inning came off the bats of Bryn D’Andrea, Jared Zarwin, and Drew Yekel. Jesse Kohler and Zarwin led the 10-hit Upper Dublin offensive attack with a pair of hits each.
“To be able to play a quality Council Rock South next is quite a challenge,” said Wall. “(CR South coach) Greg Young has an awesome program, and for us to compete with them is sweet. We go into the game with momentum, but any team still playing has that momentum.
“We get to play the game at Temple-Ambler and that is about five minutes down the road,” continued Wall. “I’m sure not going to complain.”
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Upper Dublin Cardinals 110 204 x - 8 10 1
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy-rule For Council Rock South
Council Rock South scored four runs in the first inning and six more in the sixth inning as the Golden Hawks soared to a 10-0 rout over Coatesville. Rock South will travel to Temple-Ambler to face Upper Dublin in a semifinal contest.
“Usually when you get this far into the playoffs, you don’t expect to have a mercy-rule game,” said Council Rock head coach Greg Young. “We played awesome today. We hit the ball hard, Steve Wright played a great game at shortstop, and Brian Donnelly threw a shutout.”
The Hawks got off to a good start when Bret DeStefano belted a two-run homerun in the first inning. The Rock South defense played errorless baseball. And Donnelly gave the Hawks a complete game.
“Honestly, I didn’t have by best stuff,” said Donnelly. “My defense did a great job of backing me up, and Dan Callahan saved me a few times with runners on base by blocking the plate.
“Dan has been my catcher since we were six years old,” added Donnelly. “We always seem to know what each other is thinking when we work on hitters, and we have a real chemistry going.”
Next on the agenda is an upstart Upper Dublin that has been very resilient in the playoffs with a pair of come from behind wins.
“The fact that with this win over Coatesville we are now in the state playoffs is a plus going into the next game,” said Young. “But these seniors feel we still have some unfinished business.”
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Council Rock South Hawks 400 006 - 10 11 0
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