Pennridge and North Penn earned spots in Monday’s PIAA Class AAAA semifinals, thanks to their impressive wins on Thursday. To view photos of the Pennridge/Coatesville game, please visit the Photo Gallery.
By Scott Huff
There is no doubt that Pennridge head coach Tom Nuneviller dreamed last night that his Rams would be able to come up with a victory over District 2 champion Wyoming Valley West. However, the veteran PHS skipper surely did not fantasize that the Green and White would be able to knock off the Spartans with junior Eric Wesolowski on the mound and senior AJ Molettiere playing second base.
Both Wesolowski and Molettiere each played a major role as Pennridge captured a key 3-1 win over WVW in its PIAA Quad-A quarterfinal game played in a steady rain at Parkland High School. The Rams will face fellow Suburban One League Continental Conference rival North Penn in the PIAA Quad-A Semifinal contest to be played Monday (6/10/13) at a time and site to be determined. The Knights advanced with an 11-1 victory over District One champion Coatesville in a PIAA Quad-A Quarterfinal game played as Spring-Ford High School.
“This was not the game plan coming in,” smiled Nuneviller. “But things happen in baseball, and you better be able to make adjustments.”
The critical adjustments of having Wesolowski on the mound and Molettiere at second base all came about when sophomore pitcher David Tatoian felt something pop in his elbow in the fourth inning. Tatoian - in relief of starter Trevor Dalton - was dominant in his stint on the mound. But the untimely injury to the flame-throwing right-hander forced Nuneviller to juggle his lineup to account for the absence of the gifted Tatoian.
Wesolowski – who threw two and one third effective shutout innings for the Rams on Tuesday against La Salle in the 11-4 PHS victory in the opening round of states to save a win for starter Evan Myers – was pressed into service when Tatoian was forced to leave with the injury. Wesolowski again fired shutout baseball over the final three and one third innings against the Spartans to preserve the win for Tatoian.
Fired just might be an overstatement.
“Eric is a really tough kid, but he isn’t going to intimidate anyone,” smiled Nuneviller of his diminutive right-hander. “He isn’t really big – but the measurement of his heart is pretty darn big. I have known Eric ever since he was eight or nine years old, and he does a great job of working ahead of the hitters.
“I just try to mix things up,” said Wesolowski. “When (Tatoian) went out of the game, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to get nervous.
“I tried to have the same approach coming into the game like that I would have had if I knew that I was coming into the game,” added Wesolowski. “I just wanted to get things done.”
Tatoian – who is also one of the elite hitters in the PHS lineup batting third for the Rams – also plays a decent second base defensively. Molettierre was moved from left field to second base when Tatoian was removed from the game with the injury and senior Josh Apple came into the game in left field.
Molettiere played a terrific game at second base, making a pair of excellent plays on pop flies and handling everything hit his way on the ground.
“AJ was an infielder up until this season, and he sure made some great plays today that saved us some runs,” said Nuneviller. “And he continued to do a great job for us at the plate.”
Molettiere is smoking at the bat with a blistering .500 batting average during the postseason for Pennridge. And the lanky switch hitter put a charge into the baseball in his first two at-bats – at-bats that created scoring opportunities for the Rams.
Molettiere opened the second inning with a scorching double and moved to third on a groundout. He scored the first run of the game for Pennridge when junior Tyler Schoultes lofted a sacrifice fly to centerfield. The run scored by Molettiere knotted the score at 1-1.
Pennridge would take the lead for good with a two-run fourth inning. Molettiere again opened the inning with a two-bagger – this one a slicing double down the left field line. Molettiere scored when senior Jake Gordon cracked a triple to right centerfield, and Gordon would score when WVW overthrew third base in an attempt to throw him out.
“AJ has probably been our most consistent hitter all season,” said Nuneviller. “He gets what we call great ‘game’ swings, and I can’t count the number of big hits he has gotten for us this season.”
“This season has been really cool,” smiled Molettiere. “This is a team that is really coming together, and we have to keep playing fundamental baseball. This season has been hard to beat.
“Now we get to play North Penn again for the fourth time,” added Molettiere. “We beat them the first three times, and it is going to be very hard to beat them a fourth time.”
“I think this says a whole lot about our conference,” said Nuneviller. “North Penn, CB East, and CB South are all excellent teams – so are Hatboro-Horsham and Souderton. We play good teams day in and day out in our conference. The competition in our conference more than gets you ready for the playoffs.
“You figure that both us and North Penn tied for third place in our league behind CB East and CB South,” added Nuneviller. “And now both of us are playing in the state semifinals. We beat them three times this year – but the one we have ahead of us is the one we need to win to get to the finals.”
The PIAA Quad-A Finals are still very much a dream for Nuneviller and the Rams – and you never know if – and how – that dream will come true.
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[1-4] NORTH PENN 11, [1-1] COATESVILLE 1
Dylan Borawski has been the Knights’ shutdown reliever out of the bullpen this season.
On Monday, it seemed unlikely that the senior pitcher would even be able to throw in relief when the Knights faced District One champion Coatesville in a state quarterfinal contest on Thursday, much less start and give his team six standout innings in the biggest game of the season.
“He was in the hospital on Monday,” coach Kevin Manero said of Borawski. “He was dehydrated, had a fever and left practice in an ambulance.
“I actually left practice on Monday, and before I went home, I went to the hospital to see him. They pumped him full of IVs, his temperature went back down and he was fine. He went from the hospital bed to the pitcher’s mound and what a great job he did today.”
In just his third start of the season and his longest stint on the mound, Borawski allowed just three hits in six superb innings. He struck out one and walked only one.
“He threw all three pitches for strikes,” Manero said. “He kept the ball down in the zone, he kept the ball out of the fat part of the plate and just did such an outstanding job for us.
“They have some good hitters in the lineup, and you can’t just go at them with all fastballs. You have to be able to mix speeds and keep them off balance, and he did that.”
Borawski credited both his teammate and coach for his success.
“Me and (Brian) Maher are really good friends, and I listen to whatever he says,” Borawski said. “He’s always been my inspiration.
“Manero is the greatest pitching coach I’ve ever had. He knows what he’s saying, and I do exactly what he says, and it gets the job done. I was just throwing strikes, and our bats were working good. We did a really good job of hitting the ball, starting out strong, and our defense helped out. We just did a great job all around.”
Borawski’s remarkable story simply adds to the folklore of a magical postseason run for a North Penn squad that was the 12th and final seed from the north in the District One Class AAAA Tournament and is now just one win away from a spot in the state finals.
The key to the Knights’ success?
“We’re just capitalizing early and having great pitching,” Borawski said. “Our ace, Brian Maher, has just been outstanding. We’ve just been doing a great job all around – hitting and defense.”
“We just have a lot of team chemistry right now,” senior Bobby Scott added. “We’re doing all the small things right.”
And it was the small things that added up to a big inning for the Knights, who managed just one hit – a bunt single by Eddie Posavec - in a five-run third that gave them control of the game. In the inning, Chris Kersey and Zillur Rahim both delivered sacrifice flies. 
The Knights tacked on four more runs in the fourth inning to go on top 9-0. Highlights included RBI singles by Brady West and Posavec, a ground rule double by Jared Melone and a two-run single by Scott.
“We did a good job today of executing,” Manero said. “If it’s a bunt base hit or if it’s just putting the ball in play with a man in scoring position – sometimes you don’t have to do a ton. You don’t have to hit a home run, you don’t have to smoke the ball. You just have to put the ball in play.
“I thought we did a really nice job today with good at bats. We came out in the first inning a little aggressive and a little jumpy. I actually kind of liked that. That was a sign that I think our guys came ready to go. We just had to reel them in a little bit. It was getting a couple of guys on base with bunts and then getting the right guys up at the right time and cashing in.
“I think a lot of it has to do with confidence. When you get a lead and you’re playing with confidence, you tend to be loose, you tend to put better swings on the ball, and we’re doing that a lot right now.”
The Red Raiders broke up Borawski’s shutout bid with a single run in the fifth, but the Knights brought an early end to the game in the sixth when Scott, who had five RBIs on the day, stroked a two run single to give the Knights an 11-1 advantage.
“Maybe there’s a little magic in the air,” Manero said. “All year long, one of the things that we’ve found to be very helpful for us is when the bottom of the order can hit because we have guys at the top that can definitely stroke the ball. For those bottom guys to find a way on base, that’s real big for us. It gets our best bats up there with men on base.
“I know it’s obvious in baseball – if top to bottom hits, obviously that’s good, but I just think for our sake, when we get down to that six, seven, eight, nine spots, if we can produce base runners, that’s a huge piece of our game right now.”
The Knights also threw some serious leather at the Red Raiders. In the top of the sixth, second baseman Anthony Cameron made a leaping grab of a line drive that appeared headed for the outfield for the inning's first out. Centerfielder Zillur Rahim followed with a spectacular leaping grab of a ball that had extra bases written all over it for the second out.
"They're great players," Borawski said. "I couldn't say anything better about them. They're the best defense I've ever had, and I know I can trust them with anything that comes at them."
The Knights were led by the 3-for-3 effort of Melone. Scott and Posavec each added a pair of hits on a day that saw the Knights hold a 9-3 advantage in hits.
“They’re a good team,” Manero said of Coatesville. “There’s a reason why they have a district title, and there’s a reason why they have the gaudy record that they have. They are a good baseball team, but we put the pressure on them early that (third) inning and then we came up with a couple of big hits and scored runs.”
North Penn will face conference rival Pennridge in Monday’s state semifinal round. It will be the fourth meeting between the two teams. The Rams have won the first three.
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