BY JEFF FALK

EPHRATA – No one can ever take away from what the Cedar Crest baseball team accomplished this spring. But often, seasons are remembered by how they end.

On a humid Tuesday night under the lights at Ephrata’s War Memorial Field, the Falcons were whitewashed 5-0 by Lampeter-Strasburg, in the semifinal round of the Lancaster-Lebanon League playoffs. After the game’s start was delayed by two hours and 27 minutes because of thunderstorms, Cedar Crest committed five errors and managed just three singles.

The setback was Cedar Crest’s third in its last five outings, after the Falcons had started the year 14-3. The Lancaster-Lebanon Section One champions, who stood second in the latest Class AAAAAA power rankings, will see their next action next action on Thursday, May 24th at home, in the quarterfinals of District Three playoffs.

Lampeter-Strasburg, the runner-up from Section Two, moved to 16-5 and into this Thursday’s Lancaster-Lebanon League championship game opposite the host Ephrata Mounts. Back on April 18th, the Falcons had dropped a 5-4 decision at Lampeter-Strasburg in an L-L Section One-Two crossover affair.

“These league games are preparation for us to play in districts,” said Cedar Crest head coach Josh Brown. “District play is next. It’s what we’ve been looking towards. It’s the end result of what we were looking for. The kids will come back.

“The goal is to win (districts),” continued Brown. “And you do it one game at a time. I’m looking forward to it. This is just a bump in the road.”

After waiting three hours and 12 minutes for the first pitch of the second game of the semifinal doubleheader, Lampeter-Strasburg jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Pioneer three-hole hitter Luke Weigel’s solo dinger off Cedar Crest starter Daniel Mancill just cleared the fence in left field and was just fair.

The contest stayed 1-0 until Lampeter-Strasburg turned a pair of Falcon throwing errors into an unearned run in the top of the fourth. Kris Pirozzi had touched off the Pioneer rally with a lead-off double.

“That’s tough,” said Brown. “When you’ve got a 1-2 pitch, you can’t elevate. It’s been a theme with our pitchers. If it’s high, you’ve got to make sure it’s high enough.”

The usually potent Falcon offense was held in check by Pirozzi, who started and worked six innings, struck out four and walked two. Both of those walks came with two outs in the bottom of the second inning.

Perhaps Cedar Crest’s best chance to score against Pirozzi came in the third, after Luke Hains led off with a single. The Falcons also got runners to first and third in the bottom of the fifth, but again didn’t score.

Pirozzi and his relief, Josh Howells, sat down the final seven Falcon batters they faced.

“I thought the pitcher was really good,” said Brown of Pirozzi. “He shut us down. We squared some balls up, but we hit them right at them. You’ve got to get the bunt down in certain situations. You can make mistakes, but not in a game like this.”

“We didn’t really struggle scoring at the end of the season,” added Brown. “Obviously today we did. We’re producing. We had a lot of good contact. We took a lot of pitches and got him into trouble, here and there.”

Lampeter-Strasburg extended its lead to 4-0, with two runs in the top of the fifth inning. Weigel collected a two-out RBI, while the other score was unearned.

Mancill lasted five innings, struck out two and walked two.

“I thought he had a good outing,” said Brown of Mancill, who entered the fray with a 3-1 record and an ERA at 1.00. “His velocity was a little low, but he locates the ball well. He did a good job. We just didn’t hit for him.”

The Pioneers plated their final run in the sixth, and it was yet another unearned run given up by Cedar Crest. An error and a pair of wild pitches preceded Todd Shelley’s sacrifice fly to right.

“We thought about it coming in,” said Brown of the long delay. “We held the bus driver for an hour. But no excuses. They (the Pioneers) had to deal with the same thing. We were ready. We were mentally prepared. Lampeter-Strasburg just came out and beat us. They’re a good baseball team.”

To purchase images in this article email jkfalk2005@yahoo.com, or to view more go to https://lebanonsportsbuzz.com/photo-gallery/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2018 Cedar Crest Baseball Results

	League			Overall
	W	L	PCT	W	L	PCT	RS	RA
Cedar Crest	11	5	68.75	16	5	76.19	149	74
Warwick	10	6	62.50	13	7	65.00	148	67
Hempfield	9	7	56.25	10	10	50.00	121	80
McCaskey	8	8	50.00	12	8	60.00	109	101
Manheim Township	7	9	43.75	8	10	44.44	105	87
Penn Manor	4	12	25.00	5	14	26.32	66	84

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PIAA District Three

 Class AAAAAA Power Rankings

AAAAAA	School	W	L	T	Rating	TWP	OWP	TWPW	OWPW	TWPL	OWPL
1	Dallastown	16-	4-	0	0.730525	0.857143	0.575769	18.6	221.7	3.1	163.4
2	Cedar Crest	14-	5-	0	0.711635	0.810552	0.590737	16.9	218.1	4.0	151.1
3	Cumberland Valley	14-	5-	0	0.698715	0.806683	0.566754	16.9	195.7	4.1	149.6
4	Wilson (3)	13-	5-	0	0.691734	0.795337	0.565108	15.4	191.0	4.0	147.0
5	Red Lion	13-	6-	0	0.674554	0.749386	0.583094	15.3	213.2	5.1	152.4
6	Warwick	12-	7-	0	0.668240	0.724051	0.600027	14.3	222.0	5.5	148.0
7	Governor Mifflin	11-	9-	0	0.654437	0.647783	0.662570	13.2	253.4	7.2	129.1
8	J P McCaskey	12-	8-	0	0.649237	0.692683	0.596136	14.2	226.8	6.3	153.7
9	HEMPFIELD	10-	10-	0	0.635451	0.608911	0.667890	12.3	264.0	7.9	131.3
10	Chambersburg	9-	8-	0	0.610704	0.612536	0.608466	10.8	224.3	6.8	144.3
11	Manheim Township	8-	10-	0	0.600114	0.556180	0.653810	9.9	246.7	7.9	130.6
12	Central York	7-	12-	0	0.518877	0.442254	0.612527	7.9	225.9	9.9	142.9
13	Central Dauphin East	8-	12-	0	0.505009	0.474490	0.542310	9.3	198.4	10.3	167.4
14	Central Dauphin	5-	13-	0	0.498491	0.375000	0.649425	6.2	220.4	10.3	119.0
15	Penn Manor	5-	14-	0	0.481207	0.356932	0.633098	6.1	238.0	10.9	137.9
16	Harrisburg	5-	11-	0	0.468289	0.372483	0.585386	5.6	180.7	9.4	128.0
17	Reading	5-	15-	0	0.467717	0.326816	0.639929	5.9	235.0	12.1	132.2
18	York County School of Technology	9-	10-	0	0.443246	0.451697	0.432916	8.7	152.3	10.5	199.5
19	Conestoga Valley	2-	17-	0	0.383134	0.151976	0.665662	2.5	254.0	14.0	127.6
20	Lebanon	4-	16-	0	0.352832	0.210811	0.526414	3.9	198.3	14.6	178.4
21	Carlisle	1-	18-	0	0.345766	0.080906	0.669483	1.3	241.7	14.2	119.3