North Parkland tops Twin Valley at regionals

FROM THE MORNING CALL

WEST LAWN — North Parkland rode the strong right arm of Matt Smith to win the opening game of the Region 2 American Legion baseball tournament at Owls Field Saturday. The Buffaloes (26-9) beat Twin Valley, 9-7, in a game that was closer than it should have been.

In the second game, a triple by Caleb Wessner in the top of the 12th inning was the difference as Kutztown (24-1) defeated Nor-Gwyn, 3-2.

Smith faced the minimum of nine batters over the first three innings. In that time North Parkland staked him to a 4-0 lead. He'd need every one of those runs as the game progressed.

The Buffaloes, the Lehigh Valley champions, scored in the first when Matt Bahnick singled, moved to second on Mike Tenaglia's walk and scored when Ernie Stiegler reached first on an error. Stiegler grounded to first, and Brad Smith threw to second for the force, but his throw went into left field.


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The Buffaloes scored three more times in the third on singles by Bahnick, J.T. McAllister and Andy Stiegler and doubles by Tenaglia and Matt Tulio.

Twin Valley (12-8), which reached the playoffs by defeating defending state champion Boyertown in the Berks County playoffs, got on the board in the fourth when Connor Corson homered over the left-field fence, scoring Dan Myers ahead of him.

From there the two teams traded runs, with North Parkland never able to pull away nor the Raiders able to pull closer than two runs. The teams each committed five errors and there were three wild pitches and three passed balls between them.

Smith survived a scare in the top of the seventh when he walked three batters, drawing a mound visit from his coach. He stayed in and after getting Brad Smith to ground out and plunking Corson in the back for the second time, allowed only two runs to set the final score.

"The seventh inning was bad," Smith admitted. "I was throwing strikes. I throw better when my arm is loose, and in the seventh inning my arm tightened up a bit. It felt all stiff and funny. I'm happy with the ninth when I struck out the side. Later in the game I get stronger and looser. My curve ball was working well. I threw a change-up to [Corson]. Later in the game I slowed down and relied on the curveball more.

Smith finished the day with a pitch count of 152.

"I was playing third for a change," Stiegler said. "I won't make as many errors [Sunday] when I'm behind the plate where I should be. We started out strong. We were all clean and everything, but then they came back. Our pitcher was amazing today. Nine straight innings is great."

"He was trying to get ahead of me with off-speed pitches and then he'd throw the fastball," said Bahnick, who went 3-for-5. "I was patient and waited for the fastball. I've been hitting the ball real well lately."

"Not a good game," Twin Valley coach Toby Ranck said. "I don't know how many earned runs there were. Take the errors out and it was a good game. It was not our best. If we had made the routine plays it would have been a different game."

"We hit the ball very well," North Parkland coach Terry Stoudt said. "Whenever our defense hurt us our offense got us runs."

The second game was an artistic effort with few mistakes. Both Kutztown and Nor-Gwyn had 8 hits, with the Schuylkill/Berks champions committing only one error.

In the top of the 12th, Wessner tripled and Mike Gernert hit a sacrifice fly, driving home what proved to be the winning run. Aaron Ebling picked up the win after pitching seven innings in relief.

Twin Valley000 212 220 - 7-8-5

North Parkland103 221 00X - 9-13-5

Price, McCinaw (5), B. Smith and Gerringer. M. Smith and McAllister.

WP: M. Smith. LP: Price.

2B: TV: May; NP: Tenaglia, Tulio, E. Steigler.

3B: TV: Albright.HR: TV: Corson.

John Heilig is a freelance writer.