DISTRICT 4 BASEBALL: NORTHEAST BRADFORD RALLIES PAST BENTON FOR CLASS A TITLE (2023-05-26)
By TIM TAYLOR
Northern Tier Sports Report
WILLIAMSPORT — A little bit of a crazy dance along the third baseline and a timely base hit lifted Northeast Bradford to a 2-1 come-from-behind victory over Benton in the District 4 Class A championship game at historic Bowman Field Friday.
Down, 1-0, heading into the fifth inning, the Panthers knotted the score after Joe Stanton was caught in a rundown trying to reach home during a squeeze play.
The Tigers’ catcher, Connor Kapp, flipped the ball over Stanton’s head to a teammate, prompting Stanton to turn and head for the plate. Kapp was unable to get out of Stanton’s way, impeding his progress. Home plate umpire Kevin Raupers ruled the catcher’s interference on the play, resulting in the game-tying run for NEB.
Stanton led off the inning with a single, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Eli Stanton, and moved over to third on an Ethan Hunsinger ground out.
“That was a huge play,” NEB head coach Brian Salsman said. “We had a couple squeeze plays that we didn't convert, but thankfully that one worked out.
“And then Ethan with a huge hit there at the end to drive in the winning run.
Benton pulled starting pitcher Emmett Yost for Graydon Beishline in the top of the seventh and he surrendered Hunsinger’s hit.
Beishline gave up a base hit to the first batter he faced, Cayden McPherson, but struck out the next batter. The Tigers intentionally walked Joe Stanton and Eli Stanton drew a base on balls.
With the bases loaded, Hunsinger singled through the right side of the infield, allowing Joe Stanton to score and make it a 2-1 contest.
Beishline struck out the next batter to end the top half of the inning.
Josh Stanton, who came on in relief of starter Clay Wiggins in the sixth, struck out the side and the NEB bench exploded in celebration of the program’s first-ever district championship.
“I'm not an alumnus of Northeast, so I’m not really sure about that, but I have heard that as well, so that's a tremendous, tremendous accomplishment,” Salsman said.
A district title is big for the school, according to the coach.
“We're up in rural Pennsylvania where most of us haven't been out of Bradford County, and so the community's always behind us,” he said. “High school sports is it for us. We have no minor league teams, we have no major league teams, and so everybody's a high school sports fan. For the community, it’s wonderful. It just couldn't be any better.”
Second baseman Dillon Donnelly was elated to win a district championship.
“It feels great. It's awesome,” he said. “Never thought we'd be here, but we are, and it feels great.
Things were a little questionable for the Panthers through the first four innings. They stranded two players in scoring position in the first, Josh Stanton and Wiggins, while Benton left the bases juiced.
Yost then retired 11 consecutive batters before the NEB began its comeback in the fifth.
Meanwhile, the Tigers wouldn’t miss out on a scoring opportunity in the second inning, plating their only run with the help of three walks, a sacrifice bunt and a hit batter.
Benton picked up a walk, a hit batter and a base runner via error in the third, but couldn’t advance anyone past second base.
Donnelly applauded his team’s defense throughout the game.
“Coming into the game, I knew our defense was super strong and stuff like that, and we're not as strong on our That's all that we need.”
NEB intentionally walked Kapp in the fourth, but Wiggins picked him off after three pitches and the Tigers stranded another runner who had reached on an error.
Northeast came into the game with an 8-10 record, winning three of its last four games to qualify, but had beaten Benton, 3-0, just 11 days earlier.
“We've played big schools,” Salman said. “Cowanesque Valley is the only other ‘A’ school in our league and so we've got 15 games against bigger schools. I coached girls basketball years ago and we always felt that that really prepared us for when we got into the district playoffs …”
The previous win over Benton was a confidence booster for the Panthers.
“We talked about this in practice,” Salsman said. “We knew we could beat them, but we also said, you know, they're defending district champs and Mr. Yost there is a pretty good pitcher, and so we knew that we were going to be in a dog fight.
“We were just hoping that Clay was going to be on. Unfortunately, he wasn't really on too much, to tell you the truth. He was wild. He was all over the place, but he struggled and he held them to one run, and that was huge.
“Josh coming in, I’ve got all kinds of confidence in Josh. I wish he had the same kind of confidence in himself.
“When we played Benton we had 12 strikeouts against them, so we thought that we could have a couple holes in their lineup where we could maybe get a strikeout here or there,” Salsman said. “If you noticed, we intentionally walked their catcher a couple times. The guy was hitting about .450 or so, and so we thought if we could pitch around him and some of the other guys that, uh, well, we just didn't want those guys to beat us.”
Josh Stanton went 1-for-2 with two runs and picked up the win on the mound. He went 1 ⅔ innings, walking one and giving up one hit while striking out three.
Wiggins allowed one run and one hit, walked five and fanned four over 5 ⅓ innings.
Hunsinger was 1-for-3 with an RBI, Stanton went 1-for-3, and McPherson and Gavin Puza were both 1-for-3.
Defending champion Benton stranded 12 players on base in the loss, connecting for just two hits.
NEB is tentatively scheduled to play at Mansfield June 5.
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PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
