Penn Charter's Michael Siani deals against La Salle on Saturday afternoon. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)

by Jonathan Vander Lugt

If head coach David Miller had any doubts that his Penn Charter Quaker baseball team was going to be something special—not that he really would—any and all of those were extinguished Saturday afternoon.

It was just a scrimmage against La Salle, but the 8-1 win still meant a great deal. Three pitchers saw work for PC: Michael Siani, Brendan Cellucci, and Harrison Timberlake, and the trio made quick work of La Salle's hitters, striking out 12 between the three of them and allowing just three hits.

“Outside of a couple of walks,” Miller said (they did give out eight free passes and a hit batsman). “Our staff is coming along a lot faster than I thought it would.”

Siani, a sophomore southpaw, is an arm that could conceivably be called Penn Charter's third-best pitcher. He pitched the game's first three innings, gave up the Explorers' only run (an unearned one) and fanned five while popping 91 on the radar gun. Celucci, the six-foot-something hurler who's committed to Miami to pitch, tossed the next two and sent a pair of Explorer batters down swinging. Timberlake, who became the team's de facto number one last year after some injuries, was lights-out for the last two while notching five Ks.

“You see how deep our staff is,” Miller said. “We still had three more arms in the tank if we needed them.

“It's fun when you have a deep pitching staff at a high school level. The hardest part is finding enough innings for all of the guys.”

He'll have 28 to work with this week—a pair of nonconference Suburban One tilts against Cheltenham and Wissahickon dot the early week before the Quakers get two later from the Catholic League: Archbishop Carroll and Father Judge.

They had a bit of a down week before the La Salle game, so that one's result figures to be a big boost.

“Facing Caravel (from Delaware) and losing to a potential top-five round draft prospect kind of got their juices flowing a little bit,” Miller said. “They're playing hard, having fun, and they're excited about the game.

“It's about keeping them confident. Mistakes will happen, but knowing that we have the staff that we do, you need to limit them as much as you can do.”

For as well as this one went for Penn Charter, it didn't quite go as badly for La Salle as one might expect. Penn Charter only had six hits themselves, and none went for extra bases, so while the final score would indicate a pitching staff that got touched up, that wasn't really the case. Throw in four errors, and you have a recipe for a lopsided finish.

“We faced some really good arms and they've got a really talented club,” said La Salle head coach Kyle Werman. Sure, it's coachspeak, but he's not wrong. “We knew that going in. They're the type of team we've got to beat if we want to get where we want to go.

“I thought we competed well, at times. Guys took competitive at-bats, pitchers were in the zone. (The pitchers) did what we expected them to do. Our staff has guys that are strike-throwers. They pitch to contact.

“With that, we're going to get balls in play. When we make errors, or put guys on base with walks and hit-by-pitches, that's what's going to beat us.”

The Explorers will spend the week in Myrtle Beach, S.C. playing in the Mingo Bay Baseball Classic before diving head-first into league play the week following.

“We're still figuring out who's going to be where in the field,” Werman said. “Third, short, and second are all open. The only guy that's solidified his position in the infield is Dave Hemcher, at first base.

“We've got options—guys are competing, and we're learning what they can do both in the field and at the plate, The goal is to go into Myrtle Beach and spend four games trying guys in different spots. We'll see what meshes, and hopefully by league play, we'll have a better idea of what we're working with.”