Pennsville rallies to beat Pitman in a South Jersey Group I playoff game eerily similar to a regular-season game they played a month ago; Schalick rolls in another Elmer win, Salem Tech falls in first-ever playoff game
SJ GROUP I BASEBALL
Friday’s quarterfinals
(8) Audubon at (1) Schalick, 3 p.m.
(5) Wildwood at (4) Maple Shade, 3 p.m.
(6) Pennsville at (3) Haddon Twp., 4 p.m.
(10) Buena at (2) Woodstown, 4 p.m.
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNSVILLE – Somebody had to remind Pennsville baseball coach Matt Karr it was May 28 and he hadn’t been magically transported back to April 17. Stop him if you’ve seen this movie before.
The Eagles found themselves in the same kind of game against Pitman Thursday they were in when the teams played for lesser stakes a month earlier. The Panthers had one big inning again to make them sweat, but just as they did that day in April the Eagles rallied and escaped with a 6-5 win in the opening round of the South Jersey Group I playoffs.
It was Karr ‘s 150th win as the Eagles’ head coach – “and 150 more grey hairs, too,” he quipped.
“I think the word I used walking down with the coaches was ‘aw, this is like déjà vu, man,’” Karr said. “It was that same kind of inning they were literally just putting the ball in play. But that’s baseball. When you get in those situations those little things are amplified because of the pressure that’s created by having baserunners and we did that to ourselves, walking guys, not picking our pitcher up with ground balls that should be outs.
“We magnified the situation and we amplify the pressure on ourselves because now we’ve got to be perfect. Now any little thing goes wrong and it’s a run here, a run there. We talk all the time that great teams have the ability to say who are we and how do we win ballgames. It’s hard for us to fire up a four- or five-run inning. We have to play good defense, we have to do the little things and win innings throughout the course of the game and that one got away from us.”
In the April game, Pitman scored five runs in a squirrely third inning to take a three-run lead and the Eagles chipped away each of the next three innings to come back and win. On Thursday, the Panthers scored four in an equally squirrely third to take a three-run lead and the Eagles chipped away over the next three innings to tie the game and ultimately go ahead on Dante Cummings’ bases-loaded fly that got away from the outfielder and scored two runs.
In April, Karr called on Gavin Spears to shut the door behind starter Logan Streitz and Spears gave up no runs over the final four of his 5 2/3 innings striking out 12. In this one, Karr brought in Mason O’Brien behind starter Logan Cowperthwait and O’Brien gave up one run and four hits over the final 4 2/3, striking out eight, including the 100th of his career.
“In a perfect world I would love to get to (Friday) with Mason and Gavin both available, but we did tell Gavin we were trying to get to him tomorrow as the starter,” Karr said. “Mason does a really good job coming in as a reliever. He’s got a lot going for him. I didn’t want to go from a righty to another righty, so we went to Mason as a lefty to throw them off.
“Mason and Gavin are our 1A and 1B. When you have those guys on the mound for you it’s a different mindset. Your team just feels a little more relaxed when their guy’s on the mound. We had that to finish today’s game with Mason and we’ll have that again tomorrow with Gavin on the mound to start.”
The game was tied 4-4 going into the home sixth. Pinch-hitter Scott Streitz drew a leadoff walk and forced a pitching change. Jake Layfield greeted reliever Drew Keefe with a sacrifice to move the runner into scoring position. O’Brien walked (for the third time), but Keefe fanned the next batter for the second out.
Jeff Wagner took an 0-2 pitch off the elbow to load the bases and bring Cummings to the plate. The junior designated hitter who has developed into one of the Eagles’ best hitters barreled a ball into the gap that was tailing away from centerfielder Logan Williams. The Pitman outfielder appeared to get his glove on it but couldn’t pull it down and both Streitz and O’Brien scored.
“He threw a first-pitch fastball and I saw Mason on second base, he was giving me that sign, so I knew I had to get my foot down, hit it hard, make someone make a play,” Cummings said. “I know it hit the barrel and I took off. All I saw was it hit the ground and after that I got excited. It’s probably one of the biggest hits in my career. It felt good coming back both games but today felt a lot better knowing now we get to advance and get these seniors one last home win.”
“We’ve talked a lot this year about creating our own luck and we created a pressure situation there,” Karr said. “We had runners on, we put the ball in play, we made them have to make a play. In that moment, the lucky bounce went our way.”
But O’Brien and the Eagles still had to get through seventh before they could claim victory. The Panthers got one run closer on Dylan Tyler’s RBI single and had the tying and go-ahead runs on base with two outs, but O’Brien got the final out on a grounder to second.
O’Brien came on in the third after Cowperthwait loaded the bases, threw a wild pitch to allow the tying run to score and then issued a walk to reload the bases with one out. O’Brien had gotten out of bases-loaded jams in the past this season, but this outing got off to a balky start, literally. On his first play in the game he was called for a balk after making a pickoff attempt to first without the first baseman covering the bag, bringing in the second run.
“We saw the Seattle Mariners do it and I was like I could do this as a lefty,” O’Brien said. “They looked it up and sent an email and I saw it was a balk. I got a sign to pick off a runner, it was supposed to be at second, but I thought it was first base and then that happened.”
Kiernan Clark followed with shot first baseman Grady Sanders knocked down to keep in the infield, but another run scored. The Panthers made it 4-1 when Payton Miller hit a slow roller to the left side of the infield and beat a high throw to first. The Eagles eventually got out of the inning and after that the southpaw with the sparkly cleats kept the Panthers off the board until the seventh.
“I trust myself and I know I’ve got guys behind me who’ll make a play any day of the week,” O’Brien said. “I’m just going to throw the ball over the plate and if they don’t hit it, they don’t hit it, good for me, but if they do I know my defense is going to make plays.”
The Eagles got a run back in the fourth on Steve Fatcher’s RBI single and tied it in the fourth on another RBI single by Fatcher and Gavin Spears’ sacrifice fly.
“I trusted my guys that we were going to score runs and come back and win this ball game,” O’Brien said.
After all, he had seen it before. They all had.
| Pitman | 004 | 000 | 1- | 5 | 6 | 2 |
| Pennsville | 100 | 122 | x- | 6 | 5 | 1 |
SCHALICK 23, CAPE MAY TECH 0: The top-seeded Cougars scored 13 runs in the fourth inning to turn an already one-sided playoff opener into an outright rout.
The Cougars (18-7) pounded out 21 hits in the game. Travis Snodgrass went 4-for-5 with three RBIs. Evan Glaspey drove in four runs. Jamari Whitley had three hits, Evan Sepers had three RBIs and Ricky Watt collected his 100th career hit on a second-inning RBI single that gave the Cougars a 4-0 lead.
They batted around twice in their big inning. The first 13 batters reached base and 10 scored before an out was recorded. Sepers had three RBIs in the inning, Glaspey and Snodgrass each had two.
“It’s good to kind of get things rolling and going in the right direction heading into the next round,” Cougars coach Sean O’Brien said. “We looked pretty good pitching wise, defensively and at the plate, so we saw positive things going on to the next round.”
It looked like Watt had become the second Cougar this season to reach 100th hit when he had three hits, including two record-tying homers, at Collingswood May 20, but the game was washed out two outs from becoming official. So he had to wait more days to reach the milestone.
He flew out in his first at-bat Thursday, but didn’t miss his second time up, ripping a liner to left field.
“To be honest, the second time around was definitely less special,” Watt said. “And I also didn’t add two homers on top.”
Mason Sanchez and Mason Hollywood combined on a five-inning one-hitter with 12 strikeouts. Sanchez worked the first four innings, giving up a bloop single in the first inning and striking out eight. The sophomore hasn’t given up an earned run in his last three appearances (13 innings).
“He was attacking the hitters, he was commanding the strike zone, he did good job getting ahead of guys,” O’Brien said. “He looked a lot like what he did against Pennsville, which is definitely reassuring for us this year and moving forward for next year, too.”
The game was moved to the Cougars’ second home, the Elmer Little League complex, because of field conditions. It was their eighth straight win at the alternate site and third this year. They are 16-6 and have won 15 of their last 18 there since Sean O’Brien became head coach in 2016.
“I didn’t realize overall our record there,” O’Brien said. “I know we’ve had a lot of success there, there are very few games I can remember losing, but I didn’t realize we had that good a record there.
“Playing there, it’s like our second home where I don’t feel uncomfortable being there. I like being at our place, but when we play there it’s comfortable. It’s not like we’re playing at a different field.”
“Playing at Elmer is always fun,” said Watt, who is 11-for-18 with nine RBIs at the complex the last two seasons.
The Cougars now host eighth-seeded Audubon (10-12) back in their traditional home Friday at 3 p.m. It’s an earlier start time than usual to accommodate the Green Wave’s prom later in the evening.
| Cape May Tech | 000 | 00- | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Schalick | 280 | (13)x- | 23 | 21 | 0 |
Sweet Home Away From Home
Here is Schalick’s baseball ecord at the Elmer LL complex since Sean O’Brien became head coach (16-6)
| YEAR | RESULT | YEAR | RESULT |
| 2026 | Cape May Tech, W 23-0 | 2022 | Woodstown, W 9-7 |
| 2026 | Bridgeton, W 17-4 | 2022 | Bridgeton, W 21-0 |
| 2026 | Woodstown, W 4-3 | 2021 | Woodstown, W 15-7 |
| 2025 | Glassboro, W 7-2 | 2019 | Woodstown, W 12-0 |
| 2025 | Buena, W 10-0 | 2019 | Glassboro, L 3-2 |
| 2025 | Salem, W 26-2 | 2018 | Woodstown, W 12-2 |
| 2025 | Woodstown, W 5-0 | 2018 | Glassboro, W 5-4 |
| 2024 | Bridgeton, W 25-4 | 2017 | Glassboro, L 8-5 |
| 2024 | Woodstown, L 12-4 | 2017 | Woodstown, L 6-5 |
| 2023 | Bridgeton, W 12-0 | 2016 | Glassboro, L 8-6 |
| 2023 | Woodstown, L 4-2 | 2016 | Woodstown, W 8-4 |
SOUTH JERSEY GROUP 2
BARNEGAT 16, SALEM TECH 1: The Chargers were playing in their first-ever sectional tournament game as a program and the home team didn’t make it easy for them. Barnegat pitcher Ray Danbrowney threw a five-inning one-hitter and struck out seven. The Bengals put four on the board in the first inning and added on every inning.
Jack Beal had the Chargers’ only hit, a single leading off the third inning. He moved to second on a passed ball and scored when the Bengals misplayed Lucas Clement’s grounder to short.
| Salem Tech | 001 | 00- | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Barnegat | 443 | 5x- | 16 | 12 | 2 |
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