It’s Not Too Late for Palmyra to Mount a Charge

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It’s Not Too Late for Palmyra to Mount a Charge

May 4, 2017
Jeff Falk
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BY JEFF FALK

PALMYRA – It wasn’t your typical statement win, but it was a statement win, nonetheless.

Here’s the statement: ‘We may have underachieved to this point, but there’s still time and we’re motivated to get there. And this is what we’re capable of.’

On a gray Thursday evening at home, the Palmyra baseball team took what it hopes will be the initial step towards a postseason run, with a 13-3, five-inning beat down of Mechanicsburg. The Cougars brought the mercy rule into play by scoring 12 times over their first two at-bats, something which certainly made senior right-hander Isaac Blatt’s job that much easier.

To this point, it’s certainly been an up-and-down spring for the Cougars. At 8-7 overall and 7-4 in the Keystone Division of the Mid-Penn Conference, Palmyra was seated 23rd in the latest District Three Class AAAAA power rankings.

To qualify for those playoffs, the Cougars don’t have to be perfect over the next tens days, but there isn’t a lot of room for error.

The loss dropped Mechanicsburg to 7-8 on the season and 6-6 in the division. The Wildcats had beaten Palmyra 3-2 in Mechanicsburg on April 11.

“I think we can get caught as a team trying to figure this out, mathematically,” said Palmyra first-year head coach Neil Weber. “We have five games left. We haven’t won five in-a-row this year. That might be too big to think about. We’ve got to focus on our next game. We’ve got to worry about Monday.

“I think you can take success from any game,” continued Weber. “You can take success from a loss. Districts are a huge goal for us, but we’ve gotten better. If we get there, great. If we don’t, we’ll use the reasoning to get ourselves better.”

“This was important to start our win streak to finish the season,” said Blatt. “Our goal is to get six in-a-row, to get us the best spot in districts.

“It’s definitely in our minds,” Blatt continued. “But when we come to the field, we’ve got to play loose, we’ve got to play to win. But we’ve got to keep it in the back of our minds.”

After spotting the Wildcats a 1-0 edge, the Cougars came roaring back to score eight times in the bottom of the first inning. With one out, eight straight Palmyra hitters reached base, and all eight scored. In all, the Cougars sent a dozen batters to the dish during the rally.

The big blows – two-run singles – were struck by senior Dylan Spanolo and freshman Casey Shughart. Blatt, Braden Vernet and Sam Ziegler also drove home Palmyra runs.

“I think it’s a situation you want to be in,” said Weber of his club’s early advantage. “But hopefully it doesn’t change your approach. We want to have quality at-bats. These are good team. They can come back. It’s happened before to us, but I think we learned from our mistakes.

“It’s (the Cougars’ offense) been up and down,” added Weber. “We have a ton of room for improvement. We’re trying to bring an approach that maybe some of the guys aren’t used to taking. We talk about being tenacious at the plate and really owning your at-bat.”

“I try not to change anything,” said Blatt of pitching with the lead. “I pitch like it’s a tie game or we’re behind. I try to keep guys off base. And if they do get on, I try not to allow them to get around.”

Palmyra’s opening-inning momentum carried over to the second, where they scored four more to make it a 12-1 game.

The Cougars’ first three batters in the frame – Jake Roe, Spagnolo and Brian Coburn – reached base. Ziegler knocked in a run with a ground-out, Vernet laced a two-run single and Blatt completed the rally with a two-out, run-scoring triple.

Every Palmyra starter either scored a run or drove one in.

“Isaac is a leader,” said Weber. “You always feel good when Isaac is on the mound. He always comes prepared. He’s always ready to play.

“For Blatty, he’s a complete pitcher,” continued Weber. “He can get guys out in a couple of different ways. He can throw his fastball anywhere in the strike zone. He can pitch traditionally and he can pitch backwards. He has a ton of composure. He’s a really good competitor.”

“I did alright,” said Blatt. “I had a little trouble with the mound, but I’m getting used to it. I think my stuff was OK, and I located pretty well.”

Blatt surrendered a run in the first and two in the fifth, but in between he permitted just a single single. Blatt got the win by striking out one and walking one.

“For us, it was a very important game,” said Weber. “We need to win every (remaining) game, or close to it. We’ve got to put some wins together.”

“The season’s gone well,” said Blatt. “But we’ve had too many mistakes in too many games. But things are starting to come around, starting with today’s game.”

The Cougars pushed their lead to 13-1 in the bottom of the third inning. A single from Roe and a walk to Spagnolo preceded a Mechanicsburg throwing error.

“I think we’re getting really close to understanding what kind of players we have,” said Weber. “We have an almost entirely new coaching staff, so it’s been an adjustment. I think the deep run our basketball team had kept some of our senior leaders on the court. This is who we are. We’ve been sporadic. We’ve had games like today. But we’ve also had games where we struggled to score runs.”

“There was a little bit of an adjustment,” said Blatt. “He’s (Weber) definitely a lot different than our last coach. We’ve really adjusted to him, and we’re hitting our stride now.”

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

2017 Palmyra Baseball Results

DATE	OPPONENT	TIME	OUTCOMES
03/24	@Big Spring	4:15 PM	L 1-2
03/29 *	@Hershey	4:15 PM	W 6-3
03/30 *	@Bishop McDevitt	4:15 PM	L 3-9
04/03 *	Susquehanna Twp.	4:15 PM	W 10-2
04/05 *	Lower Dauphin	4:00 PM	L 0-9
04/08	@Cedar Crest	1:00 PM	L 9-10
04/08	Northern Lebanon	4:00 PM	W 8-0
04/11 *	@Mechanicsburg	4:15 PM	L 2-3
04/13 *	@CD East	4:00 PM	W 1-0
04/18 *	Harrisburg	4:15 PM	W 12-0
04/20 *	Hershey	4:15 PM	W 3-2
04/22	@Muhlenberg	7:00 PM	L 3-4
04/27 *	@Susquehanna Twp.	4:15 PM	W 12-0
05/02 *	@Lower Dauphin	4:00 PM	L 4-6

DATE	OPPONENT	TIME	LOCATION
05/04 *	Mechanicsburg	4:15 PM	Palmyra High School
05/08	Middletown	4:15 PM	Palmyra High School
05/09 *	CD East	4:00 PM	Palmyra High School
05/11 *	@Harrisburg	4:15 PM	Harrisburg High School
05/13	@Shippensburg	2:00 PM	Shippensburg High School
05/15 *	Bishop McDevitt	4:15 PM	Palmyra High School

PIAA District Three

Class AAAAA Power Rankings

AAAAA	School	W	L	T	Rating
1	Elizabethtown	14-	2-	0	0.756601
2	Red Land	12-	3-	0	0.750890
3	Daniel Boone	12-	3-	0	0.748443
4	Cedar Cliff	13-	3-	0	0.743857
5	Northern York	13-	1-	0	0.734895
6	Lampeter Strasburg	12-	5-	0	0.699459
7	Hershey	12-	4-	0	0.694662
8	Manheim Central	12-	3-	0	0.689981
9	Lower Dauphin	12-	5-	0	0.689343
10	Gettysburg	11-	4-	0	0.668698
11	Fleetwood	12-	4-	0	0.666941
12	Garden Spot	11-	5-	0	0.656941
13	Twin Valley	11-	5-	0	0.652476
14	Greencastle Antrim	9-	5-	0	0.649665
15	Muhlenberg	9-	8-	0	0.624023
16	Ephrata	9-	8-	0	0.616655
17	Spring Grove	10-	8-	0	0.615048
18	Waynesboro	8-	7-	0	0.591020
19	Donegal	8-	10-	0	0.578925
20	Mechanicsburg	7-	7-	0	0.576014
21	Exeter Township	6-	8-	0	0.574149
22	Cocalico	10-	7-	0	0.571279
23	Palmyra	7-	7-	0	0.562212
24	New Oxford	7-	10-	0	0.506192
25	Northeastern	6-	10-	0	0.503840
26	Solanco	4-	11-	0	0.484362
27	Dover	6-	11-	0	0.464902
28	South Western	2-	12-	0	0.383368
29	Milton Hershey	2-	10-	0	0.325503
30	William Penn	0-	0-	0	0.000000