ORWIGSBURG — Dean Stramara wasn’t going to let one hit ruin his evening.
After losing his bid for a no-hitter in the seventh inning, the Blue Mountain ace got the next two outs to give the Eagles a 4-0 win over Palisades in Wednesday’s District 11 Class AAA quarterfinals.
“It would’ve been nice to get that no-hitter,” Stramara said. “But I’ll take the win any day.”
The victory advances No. 3 Blue Mountain (18-5) to Saturday’s semifinals, where the Eagles will play second-seeded Saucon Valley at 2:45 p.m. at Easton’s Hackett Park. Saucon Valley beat Southern Lehigh 12-2 on Wednesday.
Stramara finished with five strikeouts and no walks. He cruised through the Palisades order, never exceeding 16 pitches in an inning.
“Dean pitched well today. He was on,” Blue Mountain coach Tom Kramer said. “He had all his pitches working. He made it easy on us again. He did the same thing last week in the (Schuylkill League) semifinals against Schuylkill Haven.
“He didn’t have any base runners because he’s throwing strikes. The hitters figured that out and they came up swinging. Defensively, we made a lot of plays behind him. Pretty clean game — clean enough be able to come out of here with a win.”
A lead-off error had Stramara in a jam, and it looked like the sixth-seeded Pirates (13-10) would score when Nick Sanders broke for home on a second error with two outs. But Eagles first baseman Austin Krammes recovered the ball and threw Sanders out at home.
Blue Mountain committed three errors Wednesday, but all were on awkwardly hit balls in the infield.
Pirates starter Brendan Caraway wasn’t able to wriggle out of an early jam like Stramara.
Adam Hull led off the Eagles’ first by lining a single down the left-field line. Stramara followed with a sacrifice bunt before Sean Greenawalt was hit by a pitch (his first of two). Then a Zach Martin sac-fly was followed by Troy Moyer getting hit by a pitch (his first of two) to load the bases.
Rob Oliver drew a walk to put Blue Mountain up 1-0.
“We got a good scouting report and knew (Caraway) threw a lot of fastballs,” Hull said. “I knew I had to get on top of it and hit the ball hard. I knew fastballs were coming.”
Hull got the Eagles going again in the second with a one-out triple to plate Jack Barton. Hull scored on Stramara’s single in the next at-bat to make it 3-0.
Hull finished 3-for-4 with two runs and an RBI.
Moyer led off the third with his second hit-by-pitch, advanced to third on a throwing error and scored on Krammes’ fielder’s choice to give the Eagles their final run.
“We were fortunate early that we were able to put enough offense on the board and get them in a hole,” Kramer said. “It’s tough when you’re on a long bus trip, you’re the lower seed. It helps us to score some runs early and we were able to do that. Dean made it easy for us after that.”
Stramara said it was around the fifth inning when he noticed he had a no-hitter, though he didn’t think much of it, adding, “You can’t let that get to you.”
All the contact Palisades got on the Towson-bound Stramara was right at the Blue Mountain defense.
“He had good stuff,” Palisades coach Gary Koenig said. “It looked like he had a pretty good two-seam fastball that got in on us and we hit a lot off our hands. He did a really nice job pitching today.”
It didn’t matter what the pitch was, Stramara made the Pirates’ batters find a gap. But there were few to be found.
“I was just pounding the zone with a lot of strikes, fastball, slider, curve, just everything,” Stramara said. “My defense had a great game today. There were some plays I didn’t think they were going to make and they pulled it off. I can only tip my cap to them.”
Two of the finer defensive plays by Blue Mountain came from third baseman Oliver and left fielder Justin Hammer.
Oliver made a diving catch on a liner to start the third inning, while Hammer kept the no-hitter preserved with a sliding snag that would’ve dropped between him, Oliver and Greenawalt in the fifth.
Tyler Caraway broke up the no-hitter on a 2-2 bloop to right-center with one out in the seventh.
“The kids are focused, which you need to be at this time of year,” Kramer said. “Now, the better teams are surviving. You’re going to see better pitching, teams will make less mistakes. We lived to play another day and we’ll see what happens on Saturday.”
Game Summary
District 11 Class AAA Quarterfinal
At Allen Greenawalt Field
PALISADES (0) — Sanders 3b 1 0 0 0, McGrath ss 2 0 0 0, Koenig c 3 0 0 0, T. Caraway 1b 2 0 1 0, J. Reitz lf 3 0 0 0, B. Caraway p 3 0 0 0, Boone cf 2 0 0 0, Bartol rf 2 0 0 0, Marsh 2b 2 0 0 0. Totals 20 0 1 0.
BLUE MOUNTAIN (4) — Hull cf 4 2 3 1, Stramara p 3 0 1 1, S. Greenawalt ss 1 0 0 0, Hammer lf 0 0 0 0, Martin dh 2 0 0 0, Moyer 2b 1 1 1 0, Oliver 3b 2 0 0 1, Kyslinger c 3 0 0 0, Benner cr 0 0 0 0, Krammes 1b 3 0 1 1, Barton rf 3 1 1 0. Totals 22 4 7 4.
Palisades (13-10) 000 000 0 — 0
Blue Mtn. (18-5) 121 000 x — 4
E — Palisades 1, Blue Mountain 3. DP — Palisades 1, Blue Mountain 0. LOB — Palisades 1, Blue Mountain 8. 3B — Hull. SB — S. Greenawalt 2. S — McGrath, Stramara. SF — Martin.
Palisades IP H R ER BB K
B. Caraway L 6 7 4 3 2 4
Blue Mtn. IP H R ER BB K
Stramara W,6-2 7 1 0 0 0 5
HBP — by B. Caraway (S. Greenawalt 2, Moyer 2). T — 1:42.