Jarrad Saffren recaps games featuring SOL baseball teams in the District One Tournament. Photos of the CB South/Souderton game provided courtesy of Lisa Henderson. Check back for a gallery of game photos.
By Jarrad Saffren
Seven of the 16 teams standing in the District One Class AAAA Playoffs play in a Suburban One League.
SOL baseball teams that did not play another SOL team—Central Bucks South and Souderton played each other—went 4-1 in the first round. Including Upper Moreland’s first round win in the Class AAA playoffs, SOL clubs are 5-1 against teams from other leagues.
CB South and Wissahickon won a playoff game for the first time since 2012.
Neshaminy won one for the first time since 2005.
My point is clear, and it’s not even the least bit ironic. This is already a great spring for SOL baseball. And the SOL’s two best teams—Council Rock North and Upper Dublin—have not even played yet.
Tuesday’s results and recaps are below.
District One Class AAA Playoffs
#2 Upper Moreland 1, #7 Phoenixville 0
Let’s start at the end.
Upper Moreland and Phoenixville were tied at nada in the bottom of the seventh.
UM’s Christian Leighton got hit by a pitch. The next batter bunted him to second. The next grounded out to first, moving Leighton to third.
With two outs, Randy Meehl dug in. Phoenixville had been throwing Meehl curveballs all game. But early in his last at-bat, Meehl fouled a fastball over the Golden Bears’ dugout.
“Phoenixville’s dugout was saying, ‘Oh, he’s way behind it,’” Upper Moreland coach Ken Irwin said. Naturally, Meehl got another fastball. I’ll let Irwin take it from here.
“He jumped all over it and hit it over the right fielder’s head,” Irwin said. “Game over.”
Leighton charged home and Upper Moreland walked off.
The Golden Bears dog-piled on Meehl near third base. In a now iconic picture, one player’s legs are sticking straight up out of the pile (@JarradSaff, master Tweeter, tweeted the picture last night after Irwin sent it to him. I am done referring to my Twitter account in third person.)
“It was nuts. Someone texted me and said, ‘You have to get that pic on a t-shirt,’” Irwin said. “This senior class has done so much for our program. I would have hated for them to go out losing at home. There was a nice crowd today with families and everybody. I was glad they got to do that in front of the home crowd.”
The moment would not have been possible without Joey Bates (Now taking nickname submissions. Kid deserves one.)
With full apologies to Hand, Klepchick, Gulibon, and Willans (One-name club), Bates completed the most ridiculous outing of the season on Tuesday.
He gave up one hit in seven innings. It was a two-out single. Bates threw 78 pitches, faced 22 batters, and ran two three-ball counts.
Adjectives, superlatives, adjectives, superlatives.
Bates also kept his coach’s blood pressure down.
“I have to tell you, I was driving to the all-league selections meeting tonight and thinking about it. As crazy as the ending to the game was, at no time was I like, ‘I think this is going to go bad.’ I said to myself, ‘How can you not have been worried? But I wasn’t,’” Irwin said. “I was never worried because the way he was pitching I was like, ‘This is one of those Joey games.’ I just got off the phone with him. I said, ‘Joe, I’ve never seen anything like that.’”
At one point, to preserve the safety of other drivers, Irwin pulled over and realized something:
“I don’t think anyone got to second,” Irwin said. He checked his scorebook and saw that he was right.
Upper Moreland (15-4, 11-3 SOL) plays No. 3 seed Bishop Shanahan on Thursday. Brandon Kohn will start for UM. Bishop Shanahan beat No. 6 seed Upper Perkiomen 4-0 on Tuesday.
Upper Moreland walked off against Bishop Shanahan in a first round game last season. The Eagles’ ace had a no-hitter through four innings. But Bishop Shanahan pulled him. Why? To save him for a showdown with No. 1 seed Holy Ghost Prep.
Whoops. The Golden Bears came back to win, 7-6. Upper Moreland lost in the second round to Holy Ghost.
The Golden Bears and Firebirds will meet again, in the district title game, if both win on Thursday.
Upper Moreland last won the district title in 2011. The Golden Bears lost the title game in 2012 and 2013.
Upper Moreland 0-0-0-0-0-0-1 1
Phoenixville 0-0-0-0-0-0-0 0
District One Class AAAA Playoffs
#18 Neshaminy 6, #15 Owen J. Roberts 5
Chris Tenaglia took over Neshaminy’s baseball program in 2012. 
The Redskins won the Suburban One League National Conference in 2013 and earned a bye in the first round of districts. Pennridge came to Neshaminy and upset the Redskins in the second round.
Neshaminy missed the playoffs in 2014 and ’15, going 6-13 last year.
On Tuesday, the Skins continued their turnaround with the first playoff win of the Tenaglia era.
“The difference between this year and last year, for the most part, is we are throwing strikes and making the plays in the field,” Tenaglia said. “We are playing much cleaner games and not giving up extra outs.”
On Monday, Neshaminy took a 3-0 lead in the top of the second. Jake Jones and Josh Lehman both stroked an RBI single. Lehman’s plated two runs.
Owen J. Roberts answered with three runs in the bottom of the third. Then, in the fourth, OJR took a 4-3 lead on a Neshaminy error.
Rain suspended play in the bottom of the fourth.
“Owen J is a good, well-coached team. They showed a lot of resilience yesterday. Bouncing back, taking lead 4-3,” Tenaglia said. “We had to sit on that all night long and take the long ride out there again.”
The bus ride from Neshaminy to Owen J. Roberts is 51 miles.
When Neshaminy arrived and play resumed, Owen J. Roberts had men on first and second with two outs. Tenaglia had to remove ace Billy Meyer because Meyer threw four innings on Monday. No. 2 starter Matt Grudza came in.
Wildcats cleanup hitter Alex Condello stepped into the batter’s box.
Grudza threw a changeup down and away. Condello chopped it to second base.
“That was gigantic,” Tenaglia said. “And think about this: The runner at second broke on the pitch. He was going to steal third. To negate that was big. The kids got excited after that.”
Owen J. Roberts ace Corey Hennessey finished four innings on Monday.
“We knew what we were going to face yesterday. That pitcher had lot of success this year and last,” Tenaglia said. “So we had an idea what we would see all week. We worked on taking a certain approach with him.”
“We didn’t know what we’d see today,” Tenaglia said. “We just knew it would be righties.”
Neshaminy saw Nate Tomlin, who hit the first two batters he faced. Then Burns bunted and reached on an overthrow. Corey Joyce raced home to tie the score.
Ed Parry singled to center as Grudza sprinted home. 5-4. Jake Jones reached on a fielder’s choice to second, scoring Burns. 6-4.
Grudza pitched a scoreless bottom of the fifth and got two outs in the sixth. But he exited after allowing a double and a walk. Evan Matthews struck out Josh Fulmer to end the inning.
Owen J. Roberts loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the seventh. Matthews gave up a sacrifice fly to make it 6-5. But, with men on first and second, Matthews got the last batter to pop-out.
“Grudza and Matthews had to work out of jams. Owen J. kept competing. They had baserunners in every inning,” Tenaglia said. “There were a lot of tough at-bats that Grudza and Matthews had to work through. But they kept competing too. And they made pitches when they needed to.”
Neshaminy (12-8, 9-5 SOL) travels to play No. 2 seed Downingtown West on Wednesday. That bus ride is 48 miles.
Jerry Scavone will start for the Redskins. He is 2-0 with a 1.05 ERA in 2016. Grudza and Matthews “will be fine to come back” if needed, Tenaglia said. TJ Arnao is also ready to pitch for an inning or two. Arnao has not pitched all season.
Neshaminy 0-3-0-0-3-0-0 6
Owen J. Roberts 0-0-3-1-0-0-1 5
#7 Central Bucks South 3, #26 Souderton 2
Central Bucks South won the district title in 2012. But the Titans missed the playoffs the last three seasons.
On Tuesday, they closed out their first playoff win since the title run. CB South led 3-0 when rain postponed the action on Monday. Everything was going right for the Titans.
Dan Klepchick was baffling Souderton. Titans hitters were rocking Indians ace Aaron Gulibon. In the bottom of the second, Tyler Rossi hit a two-run bomb and Tyler Watson smacked an RBI single.
But Souderton “came out fired up” on Tuesday, coach Michael Childs said. In the top of the third, Matt Reinert drove home Kyle Lennon to make it 3-1. In the fifth, Thylar Summerall scored on an error by the second baseman.
CB South could not get anything going against Gulibon.
“It was a tale of two days,” CB South coach Brian Klumpp said. “Gulibon came out today and kept us off guard. He threw all three pitches for strikes and kept our guys off balanced.”
Souderton could not take advantage of Gulibon’s second act. The Indians left five runners in scoring position.
“Leaving five runners on, you can’t do that in the playoffs,” Childs said. “We were happy that the kids scored against Klepchick after the season he had. We just fell a run short.”
“Klepchick was not his normal self. But even not at his best, he’s still one of the best in the area,” Klumpp said. “He battles every single pitch and at-bat. He came up with big pitches when he needed to shut them down.”
Souderton had men on second and third with one out in the sixth. But Klepchick fanned Summerall and forced Lennon to fly out to center. The Indians went down in order in the seventh.
“They won yesterday. We won today,” Childs said. “But their yesterday was better than our today.”
CB South (14-4, 12-3 SOL) hosts No. 10 seed Spring-Ford on Wednesday.
"They are going to be a pretty good team. Anybody left is,” Klumpp said. “We don’t know much about them. If we play the way we played all year, we can compete with anybody.”
Klumpp will either start Dan McCartin or Alex Bendzlowicz.
"We are reviewing information about Spring-Ford,” Klumpp said. “But we are waiting on more before we make that decision.”
Souderton finishes the season 10-11 overall and 7-8 against Suburban One League Continental Conference opponents. The Indians went 2-6 in their last eight games against league foes.
“Of all my years, this was one of my hardest working teams. And the guys got along so well,” Childs said. “We did well in the first half. But the lesson is, in the second half you have to stay tough. A 5-2 first half and 2-5 second half usually doesn’t get you in the playoffs. But because we beat CB South twice in the regular season we got in.”
It was Souderton’s first playoff appearance since 2010.
“These guys set the tone for the future,” Childs said. “The underclassmen are excited. In the beginning of the year, our goal was to get into the playoffs. We did that. I’m proud of these guys. That continued today. They came out with energy and were really into it.”
Souderton will lose 10 seniors, including five starters. Gulibon, who was voted team MVP, will be the biggest loss. He went 4-4 with an 0.73 ERA in the regular season. He also struck out 71 and walked 14 in 48 innings.
“We’ll miss him the most. For what he did on and off the field. He led workouts in the offseason at 6 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Showing that kind of commitment in November is hard to do,” Childs said. “But they all contributed. Blake Gular catching, Matt Reinert in centerfield, Mitch Amenta, everyone.”
The Indians have 13 juniors. Childs is pumped about all of them.
“Thylar Summerall was a bright spot this year. He hit the ball hard. Dan Knechel stepped up pitching-wise. Derek Freed won the shortstop job late,” Childs said. “Kyle Lennon has good speed. Jake Morgan and Miles Minnick will pitch. It was hard for them to get on the mound this year with Gulibon and Knechel.”
Childs is even excited about a sophomore.
“Luke Barnum hit really well,” Childs said.
Each aforementioned player earned varsity experience in 2016.
“They all played significant innings in non-league games at least,” Childs said.
Souderton will have to improve its hitting to make a deeper run next season. The Indians hit just .246 in 2016. They led the SOL Continental with a .302 batting average in 2015.
“The pitching and fielding improved significantly this year,” Childs said. “But the hitting dropped off.”
Central Bucks South 0-3-0-0-0-0 3
Souderton 0-0-1-0-1-0-0 2
#13 Wissahickon 4, #20 Strath Haven 0
Logan Willans? Logan Willans. Yes, Logan Willans.
In seven innings, Wissahickon’s ace gave up three hits, struck out nine, and walked one.
In the top of the third, Willans fanned two straight batters with men on first and third.
The pitcher also drove in a run on a squeeze bunt. Jeremy Spittle touched home plate with his cleated foot (Ad space for sale if a cleat company wants its name dropped in this line whenever I use it.)
Wissahickon’s other three runs came on two errors and a wild pitch.
The Trojans (11-8, 10-4 SOL) play No. 4 seed Perkiomen Valley on Wednesday.
Wissahickon 0-3-1-0-0-0 4
Strath Haven 0-0-0-0-0-0-0 0
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