Fort Cherry rallies to give Sawhill his 300th win
Jerin Steele
COAL CENTER – Just when it looked like Fort Cherry’s unblemished season was going to come to an end, Ben Demascal came through in the clutch.
Demascal belted a solo homer to center field with two outs in the top of the seventh inning and the Rangers scored five times in the top of the eighth to defeat California 12-7 and sweep their Class 2A Section 1 baseball series.
It was also the 300th win of Rangers coach Bob Sawhill’s career. After the game the players presented Sawhill with a banner and a bright red bat that had “Thanks Coach” written on it.
“That just means I’ve been around for a while,” Sawhill said with a laugh. “What a way to get it though.”
The 300th win celebration would’ve been put on hold if it was not for Demascal’s heroics in the seventh. He knew he hit it well, but was charging around the bases before he was told the ball made it over the fence.
“I put my head down and ran, because I wanted at least three,” Demascal said. “The guys behind me coming up are hitting the ball great, so I wanted to be at third, so I could score. I didn’t even see it go out. I just heard them say it made it out.”
It set the stage for Fort Cherry’s big eighth inning, which started with Blake Sweder beating out a high throw to first base. Sweder stole second, moved to third on a bunt single by Blake Merkle and scored when Dylan Lueck successfully laid down a safety squeeze bunt in front of the pitcher’s mound.
Nathan Wolfe and Landon Trnavsky had back-to-back RBI singles and Colton Temple belted a two-run homer to center field, his second of the game, to make it 12-7.
It landed in front of some excited Fort Cherry students that had just made their way down from the football field where they were competing in a WPIAL team track meet.
Temple finished 3-for-5 with a double, two homers and drove in five runs.
“I usually sit fastball and if I see spin I just try to keep my weight back a little more,” Temple said. “Both of my home runs were on curveballs, so I just kept my weight back and was able to drive the ball.”
Ryan Huey shut it down, pitching three scoreless innings of relief to earn the win. He had eight strikeouts.
Fort Cherry (10-0, 15-0) won Monday’s game 9-0 and it looked like they were off to a similar result Tuesday after racing up to a 6-0 lead after the top of the third.
But California (8-2, 10-6) responded by scoring seven unanswered runs to take the lead.
The Trojans got one run in the third, two more in the second and took the lead with a four-run outburst, all with two outs, in the fifth.
Temple struck out the first two batters in the inning, but walked Kaden Weston, hit Logan Hartley and after a 3-0 count, Eli Carpenter was walked intentionally to load the bases.
Then, Chase Shemansky came to the plate and promptly belted a triple over the head of Trnavsky in center field.
Shemansky scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch.
That lead held until Demascal’s homer. Prior to the homer, California starter Weston Monticelli had retired seven in a row dating back to the fifth inning.
“One pitch,” California coach Jason Rechichar said. “Unlike yesterday, they kept playing and kept hitting and chipping away at it. It was a great effort. We were one pitch away from beating in my opinion the best Class 2A team in the state.”
Fort Cherry belted four doubles in the first inning and plated three runs.
Trnavsky led off with a double to center and Temple followed with another hard shot to center to give Fort Cherry a 1-0 lead two batters into the game.
Huey found the left center gap with one out to score Temple. Tyler Wolfe scored Huey with a hustle double to left field.
With Nathan Wolfe on first after a leadoff single, Temple smashed a two-out, two-run homer over the left field fence to make it 5-0 Fort Cherry in the second inning.
The Rangers added another run in the third when Tyler Wolfe doubled home Huey.
California got its first run of the two-game series in the bottom of the third. Owen Rechichar lined a single to right field and later scored when Demascal’s throw to first went wide of first, while trying to turn a double play.
The Trojans added two more in the fourth. Hartley was hit by a pitch and scored when Carpenter hit a ball to left field that eluded the glove of Huey.
Carpenter later scored on a safety squeeze by Parker Gillen.