NTL BASEBALL: TOWANDA ENDS 2021 STRONG AFTER TOUGH SEASON (2021-06-08)

Northern Tier Sports Report
It wasn’t the season Towanda coach Karl Raffin was hoping for. A myriad of issues - Covid shutdowns, inconsistent pitching, giving up big innings - seem to haunt the Knights for much of the season as they went 5-15 for 2021.

“The beginning of the year was tough,” said Raffin. “We got shut down because of COVID for about a week-and-a-half early on, and then a few more days a bit later in the season. I think it wasn’t until game 12 that we finally had all our starters on the field at the same time, so that made it hard to get into a groove. We were playing a lot of young, inexperienced players at times, but the kids remained pretty upbeat throughout the year. We just kept preaching to them that we have to keep working, and take care of the little things, and put a complete game together. We told the kids that a lot of what was going on with our team was out of our control, and other teams were dealing with similar circumstances with shutdowns, etc. I just told them to stay positive, and keep grinding.”

They had a 10 game losing streak in the middle of the season, but it wasn’t all cut-and-dry. They were beating eventual NTL champions Wellsboro until late in their 9-7 loss over there, had two close losses to Troy, and NEB, and saw close games with Wyalusing, Canton, and CV get away from them.

After breaking the streak with a 1-run win over Troy, they would go on to finish their final seven games 4-3, looking more like the team Raffin envisioned. The highlight was a walk-off win over their rivals Wyalusing, while they also defeated a playoff team in Montgomery.

“The end of the year we began to pitch better, mainly,” explained Raffin. “We had issues all year with having one bad inning in a game that really hurt us. We just couldn’t get that out when we needed it, as the season went on we were able to do a much better job of limiting the damage when we would have a tough inning. That allowed us to give ourselves a chance offensively later in game.”

Though it was in just 12 games, Chase Parker led the team in hitting with a .447 average, including 10-RBIs. Owen Clark hit .323, while Clark (10 runs), Haven Fee (15 runs), Garrett Chapman (10 runs), Ethan Sparrow (11 runs), and Alex Bowman (10 runs) all reached home in double figures.

Mason Johnson (.281 average) had 13 RBIs to lead the team.

Chapman went 2-0 on the mound to lead Towanda, with a 3.23 ERA, while Octavious Chacona had a 4.16 ERA with 50 strikeouts as he received many of the tough pitching assignments.

Chacona also led the team in innings pitched with 37, while Sparrow threw 31 1/3-innings with 26 strikeouts, and a 5.59 ERA.

One consolation is that most of the players will be back next season, and Raffin hopes that they’ll be much improved.

“I just really want them to play as much baseball as they can between now, and next season,” he said. “Missing that whole season last year definitely showed, and the best way to improve is to play as much as possible. We have a good group of younger kids this summer in Legion ball, so hopefully playing an extra 15 or so games together will get us back on track for next season.”