Town and Country Newspaper

Sports Article

Perkiomen Downs Q-Town, Fall to Tigers and A’s

Written by Dave Teufel, Correspondent
2013-06-05

Perkiomen Post 184 catcher Austin Orsini extends his glove with the ball in it to tag out Warrington's runner at the plate in Sunday night's legion game at Upper Perk. Warrington won by a 4-3 score.

The Perkiomen Post 184 baseball squad was busy this past weekend as they played three straight days starting last Friday night when they traveled to Quakertown and posted a 3-1 win over the Blue Jays.

Perkiomen took advantage of a walk and an error in the top of the first inning to take a 2-0 lead. Zach Zappo scored on a ground-out off the bat of Ryan Harris, and Brendan Fitzgerald’s two-out single plated Brandon Frickmann, who had reached on the error.

The two first-inning runs would be all that Perkiomen starting pitcher Dante DeBrigida needed. DeBrigida scattered five hits over seven innings, allowing just one earned run while striking out six in picking up Perkiomen’s first league win of the season.

Perkiomen’s offense was led by Noah Kauffman and Brendan Fitzgerald who each had a pair of base hits. Both of Fitzgerald’s hits came with two outs, and each produced an RBI.

Saturday the team traveled to Doylestown to take on the defending state champion, the Tigers. Things didn’t go quite as well for the locals as a pair of first-inning errors led to two unearned runs for Doylestown.

In the second, the Tigers plated two more runs, as designated hitter John Mullens’ drive down the left field line fell in for a double. A diving Zappo came within inches of robbing Mullens of the bases-clearing hit that increased the Tigers’ lead to 4-0.

Perkiomen would cut the lead in half at 4-2, but another Perkiomen error in the bottom of the fifth would give the Tigers their third unearned run of the game. This one would prove costly as a seventh inning rally by Post 184 would come up one run short as Doylestown held on for a 5-4 win.

Though he was pleased with his team’s efforts, Perkiomen Head Coach Mike Fitzgerald left no bones about the fact that his squad needs to pick it up defensively.

“This team has heart,” Fitzgerald said, “they battle every game, but take away the errors and we probably win this game. Look at last night against Quakertown, we got great pitching from Dante and played good defense. We went home with a win. Today we got another really good pitching performance from Matt (Tice), but the defense struggles and we come up one run short. We need to play better defense it’s that simple.”

Sunday, Post 184 hosted Warrington and, unfortunately for Perkiomen, the struggles on defense continued, as the A’s posted a pair of unearned runs in the top of the first inning to take a 2-0 lead. Perkiomen would once again battle back but couldn’t produce the big hit as they left the bases loaded with only one out on two separate occasions. Despite the missed opportunities at the plate, the visitors still needed a pair of runs in the seventh to earn the 4-3 win.

Pitching remained a bright spot for Perkiomen as Brendan Fitzgerald went the distance allowing just two earned runs in the loss.

The loss dropped Perkiomen to 1-3 in league play, but they will look to improve on that this weekend with three straight home games beginning tonight when they host Quakertown at 7 p.m. They get another shot at the Tigers Saturday night at 7 p.m., then host Hatfield Sunday at 1 p.m.

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