Baseball games between these longtime rivals have often been nail biters, and more often than not they are at least fairly close.
Not Monday afternoon. Jumping out to a 3-0 lead and keeping up the pressure throughout, visiting Pennsbury (7-1, 4-1) swamped Council Rock North (3-3, 2-3) by a 15-0 score in the April 17 Suburban One League Patriot Division game shortened to four innings because of the 10-run rule.
Equally as bad as the score for CR North was the fact it didn’t manage a hit against Pennsbury junior right-hander Connor McCloskey, who went the distance.
“Those guys came out swinging and it didn’t matter what we threw,” CR North head coach Matt Schram said. “They were clearly the better team on all different levels. A game like this can do one of two things, either define our season negatively or define it positively if we get after it and have good practices and good games the rest of the way.”
And while giving Pennsbury full credit for its superlative game, Schram added that another factor was at play.
“Our seniors were away at Disney World all last week,” he said. “They didn’t get back until last night, so this game had all the negatives of what could possibly go wrong did go wrong. My whole infield hadn’t touched a baseball in seven days.
“I’ve been teaching in this district for 20 years and I argue it (timing of the senior trip) all the time. The trip is awesome. To be able to visit Disney World with your friends is awesome. It’s the greatest thing, but the problem is it stops our season. It definitely impacts our season and all the spring sports.”
Council Rock North catcher Lukas Mullen agreed he and the other players need to do their best to bounce back from the one-sided setback.
“I’ve got the next game with them circled on my calendar,” he said. “They’ve gotten us every year that I’ve played, and I don’t like it.”
The Indians sent Jadon Tang, Jack Ploppert, Jake Ruple and Johnny Mulder to the pitcher’s mound but none could stem the Pennsbury tide for long. Council Rock North hit several balls hard, including by Leor Kedar and several others, but Pennsbury outfielders made some nice running catches. Council Rock North also hurt itself with walks, passed balls and fielding errors.
Ryan Zuckerman put an exclamation point on the game for Pennsbury with a two-run homer in the fourth that finished the scoring. McCloskey, who combined with Kayden Faulcon for a no-hitter in a recent win over Bensalem, said his fastball was working exceptionally well against CR North.
“I was able to locate it and keep it in the zone,” McCloskey said. “This game was a great outlier. Games with North are almost always tough games. They are tough competition.”
Among the Falcon hitting stars were James Schaffer, 2-for-2 with three runs and two RBIs; Zuckerman, 2-for-3 with three runs and three RBIs; Jordan Czerniak, 2-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs, and Sam Labrecque, 2-for-3 with a run and two RBIs.
“For Connor to come out and throw 42 pitches today and give up no hits is phenomenal, especially in a three-game week because now we have a full staff for the rest of the week,” Pennsbury head coach Joe Pesci said. “This was a full team effort. North put the ball in play hard but our outfield had a great game today, covered a lot of ground.”
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