Dan Shepherd's five-hit shutout leads Nazareth to Northampton County American Legion baseball title

FROM THE EXPRESS TIMES

Dan Shepherd gave his weary Nazareth legion baseball teammates a shot in the arm on Tuesday.

Shepherd recently returned from a two week absence and pitched a five-hit shutout to spark Nazareth to a 2-0 victory over Bath and a sweep of their best-of-three Northampton County American Legion championship baseball series at Nazareth Boro Park.

It was the third straight NorCo title for Nazareth, which plays Fullerton of Lehigh County at 1 p.m. Saturday in the double elimination Region 2 tournament at Gwyn Nor Elementary School in North Wales, Pa.

Nazareth, which played 20 regular season games in 21 days, matched Brian Schneider's Northampton teams in the 1990s as the only NorCo teams to three-peat.

"It's always special to win this, but it's especially nice as a first-year manager," said Nazareth's Jason Brown, who took over for longtime coach Frank Jurasits this summer. "It's nice to keep the streak alive."

Shepherd, who worked the previous two weeks as a camp counselor in the Poconos, was in control from the start. He finished with three strikeouts and three walks.

"I just came back from camp three days ago so it was actually a relief to get back to baseball," Shepherd said. "(Bath) hit the ball. I give all the credit to my defense. They controlled everything."

"(Shepherd) was even better than I thought," Brown said. "He hadn't pitched in 20 days. I wasn't worried about him being tired. I was just worried he'd be rusty. He was hitting his spots. Bath has some quality hitters and you can't afford to make mistakes against them."

Bath also qualifies for the Region 2 tournament and will play the Berks County champion at 4 p.m. Saturday.

Alex Longernecker, normally a shortstop, was thrust into a starting pitcher's role and performed admirably. Longernecker scattered seven hits in six innings while striking out two and walking three.

"Alex had probably thrown fewer than 50 pitches all year," Bath manager Dave Brong said. "It's not that he's not competent (as a pitcher), but it just makes us that much weaker at shortstop. He gave us a great effort -- seven hits against that lineup for a kid that hadn't thrown all year. He's a gutsy kid."

Nazareth has dedicated the season to Palmer Smith, the father of assistant coach Adam Smith who died on May 31.

"Palmer was a Nazareth grad," Brown said. "He was very supportive and gave a lot of time and effort to this franchise. He passed away suddenly about a week before the season started."

Nazareth scored both runs in the third inning off Longernecker. Shane Siebler and Ben Schmitt each singled with one out. Mike Garzillo followed with a grounder that bounced over the head of shortstop Jim Sawyer for an RBI single.

"I was sprinting to first base and someone from above made it hop over his head," Garzillo said. "That was all we needed the way Dan was pitching. I can't say enough about Dan's performance."

Two batters later Kyle Dauscher produced another RBI single for the second run.
Shepherd worked out of potential trouble in the sixth inning. Longernecker led off with a double but Shepherd snared Andreas Haller's line drive and easily doubled Longernecker off second.

"I don't ever remember that play," Shepherd said. "He hit it right at me and I was lucky it went in my glove."

"There's no doubt (Palmer) was looking down from above," Brown said. "How else do you explain a bad-hop single and Shepherd catching a line drive. Those things aren't supposed to happen, but they happened because we got help from above."

BATH (ab-r-h-bi) -- Longernecker p 3-0-2-0, Haller cf 2-0-0-0, Daland 1b 3-0-0-0, J. Bertolotti c 2-0-0-0, Brong eh 3-0-2-0, R. Bertolotti rf 3-0-0-0, Sawyer ss 3-0-1-0, Mitch 3b 1-0-0-0, Allman 2b 2-0-0-0, Bender lf 2-0-0-0. Totals 24-0-5-0.

NAZARETH (ab-r-h-bi) -- Siebler rf 3-1-1-0, Schmitt lf 3-1-1-0, Garzillo ss 1-0-1-1, Keglovits 3b 3-0-0-0, Dauscher c 2-0-1-1, Shepherd p 3-0-1-0, Smith 1b 3-0-1-0, Criscuolo cf 3-0-0-0, Godiska 2-0-1-0. Totals 23-2-7-2.

Bath (18-7) 000 000 0--0 5 1
Nazareth (19-7) 002 000 x--2 7 0

E -- Longernecker. DP -- Bath; Nazareth 2. LOB -- Bath 6; Nazareth 6. 2B -- Longernecker. SB -- Garzillo. CS -- Dauscher.
Longernecker and J. Bertolotti; Shepherd and Dauscher. SO-BB -- Longernecker 2-3; Shepherd 3-3.


http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/07/dan_shepherds_five-hit_shutout.html