KUTZTOWN — Dilan Smith had seen enough.
Saturday’s Schuylkill-Berks Legion League Tournament third-round game between Pine Grove and Valley View yielded some unusual plays and calls.
By the ninth inning, after six lead changes, the Pine Grove second baseman wanted it to end.
Smith singled through the right side of the infield to score pinch runner Ryan Wolfe with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and give the Grovers a wild, 7-6 victory over the West Enders.
Pine Grove (14-7) plays Muhlenberg at 7 p.m. today at Kutztown’s Breidegam Field in the fourth round.
“I was just trying to get in the gap somewhere to get that run in,” Smith said. “Our pitchers were battling. We were running out of pitchers and we needed to get a run in.”
The game, which lasted nearly three hours, featured a variety of peculiarities.
It began in the third inning, when Pine Grove third baseman Steve Zimmerman was called out — and later ejected — for having his back foot out of the batter’s box.
By rule, Zimmerman is also ineligible for today’s game against the A’s.
Pine Grove runners were thrown out from the outfield twice. Smith doubled over the right fielder’s head in the seventh and tried to turn the hit into a triple, but a perfect relay by Valley
View second baseman Hunter Bordner got Smith out third.
Nick Kreiser then singled to deep center field in the eighth and Dylan Brown tried to score from second to end the game, but Valley View’s Jordan Marlow threw a rope from center to catcher Ben Rautzahn to make the out at the plate.
In the sixth, Mark Weinus was called for a strike three after the home-plate umpire deemed Weinus leaned into a 1-2 pitch to take it on the elbow.
If the game wasn’t enough of an oddity, there also were eight passed balls and six lead changes.
“I don’t think I can explain that baseball game,” Pine Grove manager Frank D’Agostino III said. “There were a lot of things that didn’t go our way, let’s put it that way. We lost our cool a few times, which I was unhappy about.
“They still never gave up on the field, they still played and they found a way to win in the last inning.”
Valley View (7-12) held a 1-0 lead through four innings without registering a hit. Kenny Ross walked in the Valley View first, stole second and scored when Jason Chamberlain’s sacrifice bunt was thrown out of play.
Bordner started the game on the mound for Valley View despite a nagging foot injury. He still legged out a leadoff double in the fifth — the West Enders’ first hit of the game — and an RBI infield single in the sixth. He finished 3-for-4 at the plate and was relieved on the mound by Andrew Belding in the sixth.
Valley View added to its lead in the fifth when Conrad Opozda followed Bordner’s double with an RBI infield single, beating out the throw to first.
Pine Grove tied it up in the bottom of the fifth on Zach Boltz’s two-out, two-run double to left-center.
Valley View pulled ahead again in the sixth with three runs on three hits and two errors.
Pine Grove then scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth to reclaim the lead. Again Boltz drove in two runs, this time on a bases-loaded single up the middle.
Chamberlain’s RBI single to shallow center tied it in the top of the seventh to force extra innings.
Not suprisingly, Boltz, who finished 4-for-5 with four RBIs, had a hand in the winning run in the ninth inning. He opened the inning by legging out an infield single and advanced to second on a passed ball before giving way to Wolfe.
“I don’t really think there is an explanation for that game,” Valley View manager Ben Lucas said. “It was a hard-fought game by both teams for nine solid innings.”
Pine Grove has to do it all again today against regular season South Division champion Muhlenberg. The Grovers’ already short lineup will be without Zimmerman and may take a bigger hit with Pine Grove’s Teener League playoff game scheduled for 5:30 p.m. today in Frackville.
“We’ll see what we have numbers-wise,” D’Agostino said. “We’ll do our best with what we get.”
Oley/Topton 3
Southern Area 1
KUTZTOWN — Pete Vaccaro hit the go-ahead single in the top of the eighth inning as the Patriots held on to beat the A’s in a Schuylkill-Berks Legion League Tournament elimination game.
Southern Area pitchers Shane Grapsy and Danny Blugis allowed only one combined hit through seven innings, but four errors proved to be fatal for the A’s.
“When you’re in the playoffs, you’ve got to play flawless baseball,” Southern Area manager Jerry Freiwald said. “We didn’t score enough runs obviously, we’re struggling with the bats and we made a couple mistakes on the bases.”
Both teams stranded runners at third base in the sixth inning.
Blugis scored Southern Area’s only run in the first inning on Grapsy’s single.
Oley/Topton plays Hamburg today at 4 p.m.
O/T (15-6) 000 100 02 — 3 3 2
SA (15-6) 100 000 00 — 1 7 4
Kunkel, Fisher (6) and Mace; Grapsy, Blugis (5) and Kyslinger. W — Fisher. L — Blugis.
HITS: Oley/Topton — Vaccaro, Kristan 2. Southern Area — Stramara, Blugis, Grapsy 2, Oliver, Kyslinger 2.
2B — Kristan.
Game Summary
Schuylkill-Berks Legion League
Playoff Tournament
At Breidegam Field, Kutztown
VALLEY VIEW (6) — Marlow cf 4 0 1 0, Ross 3b 4 2 1 0, Chamberlain 2b-rf 3 1 1 1, Rautzahn c 4 1 0 0, Herb 1b 4 0 0 1, Bordner p-2b 4 1 3 1, D. Opozda pr 0 0 0 0, C. Opozda lf 4 0 2 1, Belding rf-p 4 0 0 0, Buchanan ss 3 1 0 0. Totals 34 6 8 4.
PINE GROVE (7) — D’Agostino cf 3 2 0 1, L. Levan ss 2 1 0 0, Zimmerman 3b 2 0 0 0, Kreiser rf 2 0 0 0, Boltz 1b 5 0 4 4, Wolfe pr 0 1 0 0, Weinus lf 5 0 0 0, T. Levan rf-3b-p 3 1 0 0, Smith 2b 4 1 3 1, Soper c 4 0 0 0, Brown p-3b 2 0 2 0. Totals 32 7 10 6.
Val. View (7-12) 100 013 100 — 6
Pn. Grove (14-7) 000 024 001 — 7
Two outs when winning run scored
E — Valley View 0, Pine Grove 3. DP — Pine Grove 2. LOB — Valley View 5, Pine Grove 9. 2B — Bordner, Boltz, Smith. SB — Ross 2, D’Agostino, L. Levan, Smith. S — Marlow, Chamberlain, D’Agostino, L. Levan.
Valley View IP H R ER BB K
Bordner 5.2 5 6 6 7 4
Belding L 3 5 1 1 2 2
Pine Grove IP H R ER BB K
Brown 5 3 4 2 1 7
T. Levan W 4 5 2 2 1 1
Brown pitched to 4 batters in the 6th
WP — Bordner. PB — Rautzahn 4, Soper 4. T — 2:58.