Mt. Airy Stars advance to next round after winning by ‘skin of their teeth’

Posted 7/11/16

Mt. Airy Stars’ Jack Gontowksi throws for Mt. Airy in the fifth inning last Wednesday. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)[/caption] by Jonathan Vander Lugt Four times in the 2016 summer season the Mt. …

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Mt. Airy Stars advance to next round after winning by ‘skin of their teeth’

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Mt. Airy Stars’ Jack Gontowksi throws for Mt. Airy in the fifth inning last Wednesday. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt) Mt. Airy Stars’ Jack Gontowksi throws for Mt. Airy in the fifth inning last Wednesday. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)[/caption]

by Jonathan Vander Lugt

Four times in the 2016 summer season the Mt. Airy Stars American Legion baseball team beat Bustleton. The combined score was 46-10. The first game in the Philly Legion league’s best-of-three first round playoff series between the teams was more of the same.

Mt. Airy left the field last Wednesday night after a 13-0 romp, up 1-0 in the series, and felt good about its chances the following day. They had to travel a bit—out to the far northeast, but rotation stalwart Sam Greene was slated to pitch.

But, as they say, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. The Stars got a battle and then some from a Bustleton team desperate to keep their season alive, but walked away by the skin of their teeth with a 5-4 win.

“They don’t come as easily as we think right now,” said Jahlil Freeman, the Star’s second baseman who was back from Lincoln University for a last go-round with Legion ball. “We’ve really got to put our all, our 100 percent, into everything we do.

“We’ve got to make every last at-bat and opportunity count. Every pitch, we’ve got to be ready for the outcome.”

Throughout much of the game, it seemed as though the Stars weren’t adhering to Freeman’s sentiment. The aforementioned Greene labored through four innings on a sweltering summer night and snuck away after giving up only three runs. A good enough performance, but he needed a little help.

The offense, after the first two innings, wasn’t up to task. Mt. Airy scored one in the first when Isaiah Gregory came around after singling, and three more in the following inning on an RBI groundout by Demetrius Smith, sandwiched between run-scoring hits by Gregory and Thomas Primosch.

That, by and large, was the end of it. Mt. Airy went down 1-2-3 in three of the next four innings. Primosch reached third after walking in the fourth, but that was the closest any Star batter got to the plate until the seventh.

Meanwhile, Jack Gontowski relieved Greene in the fifth and promptly gave up the tying run. It was unearned—the run scored on an error—but the runner reached by Gontowski’s hand on a double. He calmed down in the sixth, sending Bustleton down 1-2-3 with a pair of strikeouts, setting up a tense seventh inning.

Freeman roped a double into center—part of a day in which the leadoff batter reached all four times, scoring twice—and made it to third on a passed ball. Gregory walked in the next at-bat, and Demetrius Smith hit a sacrifice fly.

“I’m a leader on the team,” Freeman said. “I’m the first person to go out there. They look to me to set the tone.

“Their pitcher, he thought he could gas everybody. You don’t want to go up against a leadoff hitter like that, because I’m going to rip one.

“If I see that confidence, and he’s going to leave it over the plate, I’m going to take advantage of that."

A breath of relief echoed throughout the crowd of Mt. Airy’s fans—who were primed for more scoring when Primosch reached on a dropped third strike on the next at-bat—but it was short-lived. The next two Mt. Airy batters went down harmlessly, leaving the Stars with a tenuous one-run lead.

A dropped third strike put the first Bustleton batter on base in the bottom half, but Gontowski bore down and struck the next guy out. A botched hit-and-run in the next at-bat led to an infield fly and an easy play at first to double the runner off, sealing the game.

Gontowski finished with three innings pitched, no hits, one run allowed, and a prolific six strikeouts. In all, despite the run, it’s exactly what you look for in long relief.

“I love it,” he said. “I want to just destroy hitters in the most embarrassing way possible.”

Humility must have been checked at the door. The righty, a rising junior at Friends Select, mostly worked his heater and curveball against Bustleton’s batters.

“I go out and want to strike everyone out,” Gontowski said. “In a game like this, that’s the mindset you have to have to be successful.”

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