Mounts Move on to Title Tilt

Taking the field for the Lancaster-Lebanon League semifinals Tuesday afternoon, the Ephrata baseball team hadn’t lost in its past 12 games. The Mounts hadn’t lost a game since April, when visiting Warwick walked away with a victory in nine innings.

Fittingly, it was the Warriors standing opposite Ephrata again at War Memorial Field on Tuesday, this time with a spot in Thursday’s championship on the line.

And, yet again, seven innings wasn’t enough to decide the winner.

With the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth, Nate Young stepped up to the plate and dropped a flare into left field, bringing in Andrew Thomas to clinch a 4-3 victory and give Ephrata the chance to win its first L-L championship since 2015.

The Mounts opponent on Thursday was yet to be determined at press time, as Lampeter-Strasburg was leading Cedar Crest 5-0 in the seventh inning of the second semifinal on a long, storm-delayed night at War Memorial Field.

“This was kind of a hurdle that we had to climb,” Ephrata coach Adrian Shelley said of playing Warwick. “As the game went on, it just seemed like, here we go. It feels like it was Bill Murray in ‘Groundhog Day’, right back to April 18. Fortunately for us, a different result.”

“Obviously, neither team wanted to give in,” Shelley added. “On (April 18) we ran out of innings and tonight it was their team, but there’s two good teams that just kept grinding it out.”

Most of Tuesday’s game came down to small ball, and who could capitalize on the basepaths.

Warwick took advantage first, loading the bases on a single from Ryan Aukamp and walks to Evan Clark and Jeff Kline in the second inning. Another walk brought in a run before Aukamp scampered home on a passed ball.

Ephrata (19-3) matched the feat in the bottom half of the frame, with

Zac McGillan scoring on a bases-loaded walk before Warwick turned the 1-2-3 double play to get out of the jam.

The Warriors (13-8) would only get two batters into the next inning before play was suspended due to storms. More than two hours later, the teams retook the field and Ephrata took the lead with a run on an error in the third and another on a wild pitch in the fourth.

The advantage wouldn’t last long however, as Bryce Zimmerman connected for a single for Warwick in the top of the fifth, advanced on an error and a grounder and came around to score on Dagen Young’s ground out.

When seven innings couldn’t decide it, play advanced to the eighth — where walks once again played a major role. After a ground out, three straight walks loaded the bases for Young, who had a rough start on the mound before the rain, but made up for it at the plate.

“I knew on a 3-1 count he was going to give me a strike so I was going to sit on a fastball right down the middle and I got that,” said Young. “I just put the bat on the ball. It wasn’t the swing I wanted, but it worked.”