Woodstown hits back-to-back jacks in first inning, slams door on Pennsville, advances to SJ Group I baseball semifinals; Schalick falls under weight of errors
SOUTH JERSEY GROUP I BASEBALL PLAYOFFS
Wednesday’s Quarterfinals
(1) Audubon 11, (8) Haddon Twp. 1
(5) Woodstown 8, (4) Pennsville 3
(3) Pitman 6, (6) Schalick 2
(2) Gloucester 8, (7) Wildwood 4
Friday’s Semifinals
Woodstown (17-9) at Audubon (19-9)
Pitman (20-6) at Gloucester (20-7)
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNSVILLE – The official height of home plate (not that anyone cares to measure it) is one inch and it is supposed to be planted level with the batter’s box.
After Andrew Pedrick and Rocco String stomped their big shoes on the dish to celebrate back-to-back homers in the first inning of their South Jersey Group I quarterfinal with Pennsville Wednesday, instead of dusting off the plate somebody probably needed to remeasure and replant it.
Pedrick and String went back-to-back to give the Wolverines a three-run lead right out of the gate and set the tone in an eventual 8-3 victory. Pedrick dropped his size 12 on it first and then, just as the plate was returning to its original shape, String put his size 15 right on top of it with flourish.
“I do it all the time, but here I just needed to do it because I needed to make a statement to these guys,” String said. “Losing to them (earlier in the season) I really wanted to beat them real bad, so I needed to make something.”
If the Wolverines wanted to “let ‘em know you’re here” as someone shouted from the dugout after String’s shot, call it mission accomplished. They probably heard it all the way to Elmer with the energy the home runs injected to an already electric atmosphere.
The homers came after Brent Williams brought Jack Knorr home from third with a sacrifice fly. Knorr opened the game with a double.
It was the second time in their careers Pedrick and String have homered in the same game – they did last year against Salem – but it was the first time they’ve gone back-to-back. String has now homered in back-to-back playoff games.
“I think that’s what really got us up,” Pedrick said. “We’re not really a home run-hitting team, so when we got three runs in the first inning, two off two bombs, it’s just crazy, especially back-to-back like that. I was going nuts. I was jumping up and down.
“I just think we wanted to let them know we were here early. We don’t usually come out firing like that, so getting those three runs in the first inning that really put them down and got us up.”
Woodstown coach Marc DeCastro didn’t read anything more into the back-to-back homers other than it gave his team a 3-0 and a little cushion to play with “a little more freedom so if they scored a run it wasn’t the end of the world.”
The Eagles (17-10) got that run in the second inning on Jacob Grant’s sacrifice bunt and it wasn’t the end of the world for the Wolverines. Grant’s shoulder injury kept him from swinging away, but nothing was going to keep the Eagles’ only senior from playing in the biggest game of the year.
After the initial energy from both teams, the game settled into the intensity of a typical game between rivals. That is, until Woodstown broke it open with five in the top of the top of the fifth.
The Wolverines sent eight men to the plate. Williams brought home a run with a single that got through the leftfielder, String brought two home with a single that got through the centerfielder and Ty Coblentz and Caiden Spinelli drove in runs with ground outs to the right side of the infield.
Pennsville got two in the bottom of the fifth on Cohen Petrutz’ two-run single, but it wasn’t nearly enough to catch up to the Wolverines.
“They came out and set the tone,” Pennsville coach Matt Karr said. “They barreled up some balls. It’s a tough pill to swallow and it’s kind of indicative of how the rest of the game went. They set the tone and they tacked on, did the little things they needed to do.
“Like I told those guys, we got beat today. There was no one call. They hit better, they threw better and they won a baseball game and sometimes that happens.”
The fifth-seeded Wolverines (17-9) will now travel to top-seeded Audubon (19-9) Friday for one of the South Jersey Group I semifinals. They beat the Green Wave earlier this season, 8-3.
Knorr started the game on the mound for Woodstown Wednesday, but was lifted after walking two of the first three batters he faced. Aaron Foote stomped out that fire and pitched into the fifth to get the win. Michael Valente and Dante Holmes finished it up. Peyton O’Brien took the loss for Pennsville.
Knorr, Valente and Holmes all will be available “in some way, fashion or form” to pitch in the Audubon game. The starter, DeCastro said after the game, is to be determined.
PITMAN 6, SCHALICK 2: The Cougars picked the wrong time to have a difficult day in the field.
Pitman took advantage of six Schalick errors to either score runs or extend innings in their South Jersey Group I playoff game. The Panthers (20-6) advance to play at second-seeded Gloucester in Friday’s semifinals.
The Cougars (15-11) led twice in the game, but each time lost it under the weight of the miscues.
Luke Pokrovsky gave them a 1-0 lead with a homer in the first inning, but Pitman tied it in the home half on one of three errors in the inning.
Ricky Watt gave them a 2-1 lead with a RBI single in the third, but Pitman took the lead for good in the bottom of the inning when two runs scored on an infield error. Two more errors helped along a three-run sixth that put the game away.
Pokrovsky pitched the whole game for Schalick. The junior lefthander gave up six hits, three earned runs and struck out nine to finish the season with 122 strikeouts and a 1.09 ERA.
Riverview Sports News 