ORWIGSBURG — Dean Stramara and his Blue Mountain senior teammates set a goal this season of making the Schuylkill League playoffs.
Monday, they kept that dream alive.
Stramara struck out 12 in a complete-game four-hitter and delivered the game-winning hit as the Eagles edged North Schuylkill 2-1 in a Schuylkill League Division I game at Allen Greenawalt Field.
With the win, Blue Mountain (16-4, 9-3 D-I) clinches at least a tie for the Division I wild card. Pottsville secured the Division I championship with a 3-0 win over Tamaqua later Monday.
North Schuylkill (12-5, 7-3 D-I) can force a tiebreaker playoff game with Blue Mountain for the wild-card berth with wins against Jim Thorpe (Wednesday) and at Tamaqua (Friday).
“That’s been my one goal this year, making the league playoffs,” Stramara said. “Playing four years on this team and not being able to see a league playoff game ... getting that chance is exciting.”
Blue Mountain hasn’t qualified for the league playoffs since 2011, when the play-
offs were rained out. The Eagles won the Schuylkill League crown in 2010, when the playoff format pitted the two division champions against one another in a league title game.
Entering Monday, the Eagles needed a win to keep their playoffs alive.
One of eight seniors on the Blue Mountain roster, Stramara stepped up the biggest when his teammates needed him the most.
With the game scoreless in the bottom of the fifth, Stramara gave the Eagles a 2-0 lead with a two-out, two-run double to left-center off North Schuylkill ace Tevin Murray.
“Murray was challenging us all game with the fastball, and he was struggling with the curveball,” Stramara said. “We were trying to sit dead-red fastball, and at that point I was just trying to put something in play and make something happen. He actually threw me an off-speed pitch. I just stayed back on it and poked it through.”
Robbie Oliver began Blue Mountain’s fifth-inning rally with a leadoff single. After Jack Barton walked, Justin Hammer’s sacrifice bunt moved pinch runner Jon Benner and Barton up to second and third with one out.
Hammer’s bunt ended a string of three straight opportunities where the Eagles failed to get a bunt down with a runner on base.
“I told him, ‘You have to get the bunt down. I’m going to give you two shots to do it, maybe three shots,’ ” Blue Mountain coach Tom Kramer said. “The kid came through in the clutch. He got the job done that we needed done at the time.
“Earlier in the game, we couldn’t do it. That’s a credit to him.”
Murray rebounded to strike out Adam Hull on three pitches for the second out, but hung a curveball to Stramara, who roped the pitch into left-center to score both runners.
Murray, who overcame some tightness in his shoulder in the second inning, allowed just three hits, but walked five and struck out four.
“He battled. He threw a lot better today than his last start,” North Schuylkill coach Nick Brayford said of Murray. “He gutted it out. He may not have had his best stuff, but he gutted it out.
“Dean is not only a great pitcher, he’s a great hitter, too,” Brayford continued. “(Murray) made a mistake, and he hit it. That’s what good hitters do.”
The Spartans answered in the top of the sixth inning, but couldn’t get the tying run across home plate.
Mark Antalosky’s one-out single and an infield error started the rally, and John Rupinski’s two-out double sliced North Schuylkill’s deficit to 2-1. Brayford thought about sending Marlow home on the play, but decided to hold him at third.
Stramara preserved the lead by retiring Murray on a hard-hit grounder to end the inning.
“Hindsight is 20-20 ... I wish I would have sent him,” Brayford said. “I saw (the left fielder) bobble it a little along the fence, but with Tevin Murray coming up behind him, I saw him slapping a hit in there and scoring two. If I had to do it again, I’d have sent him.”
Stramara struck out the side in the seventh, finishing his 97-pitch outing with 12 strikeouts, no walks and just four hits allowed. From the first through the sixth innings, the Towson-bound right-hander retired 15-of-16 hitters, nine by strikeout.
“I felt good. I had good command of my fastball, and my slider was working as my secondary pitch,” Stramara said. “I was really confident in my defense, they’ve been playing really well lately, so I knew I could pound the zone and ground balls and pop-flies would be outs. That makes me confident and makes it easier to pitch.”
The victory concludes a stretch for Blue Mountain that saw the Eagles play 10 games in 12 days. Blue Mountain went 8-2 in that stretch, including 5-1 in league games. The only losses were to Tamaqua in nine innings and by one run in a non-league game with Northwestern Lehigh.
“We ran the gauntlet,” Kramer said. “And they were competitive games. Our kids did well. Overall, we came through that 8-2, and that’s commendable. All the credit goes to our kids.”
Game Summary
NORTH SCHUYLKILL (1) — Marlow rf 3 0 1 0, Zahodnick ss 3 0 0 0, Rupinski cf 3 0 1 1, Murray p 3 0 0 0, Burke c 3 0 0 0, Kropp lf 0 0 0 0, Hummel dh 3 0 0 0, Hillbish 3b 3 0 0 0, Steinhilber 1b 2 0 0 0, Antalosky 2b 2 1 2 0. Totals 25 1 4 1.
BLUE MOUNTAIN (2) — Hull cf 3 0 0 0, Stramara p 3 0 1 2, S. Greenawalt ss 2 0 1 0, Moyer 2b 2 0 0 0, Ege 1b 0 0 0 0, Martin dh 2 0 0 0, Kyslinger c 3 0 0 0, Oliver 3b 2 0 1 0, Benner pr 0 1 0 0, Barton rf 2 1 0 0, Hammer lf 1 0 0 0. Totals 20 2 3 2.
NS (12-5, 7-3) 000 001 0 — 1
BM (16-4, 9-3) 000 020 x — 2
E — North Schuylkill 0, Blue Mountain 1. DP — Blue Mountain 1. LOB — North Schuylkill 3, Blue Mountain 6. 2B — Rupinski, Stramara. SB — S. Greenawalt. S — Hammer.
North Sch. IP H R ER BB K
Murray L,3-2 6 3 2 2 5 4
Blue Mtn. IP H R ER BB K
Strmra W,4-2 7 4 1 0 0 12
T — 1:46.