Mounts win District Title

FREDERICKSBURG — As Adrian Shelley walked to the bus, little did the Ephrata baseball coach know what was lurking behind him.

Turning to look back at Earl Wenger Field, Shelley caught a group of his players sneaking up on him, but all he could do was stop and accept the ice water being dumped on his head.

The Mounts weren’t ready to stop celebrating, and for good reason.

Led by a 3-for-3, three-RBI day from Tim Beever and a dominant start on the mound by Adam Schwartz, Ephrata upended defending champion Cedar Cliff, 4-2, in the District Three Class 5A championship.

The title marks the second in three years for Ephrata.

“This one means a little more — in my senior year,” said Schwartz. “Sophomore year was amazing and so much fun, but this one just means a little more.”

Wednesday’s victory also marks the 18th straight win for Ephrata.

“You get to the point where you feel like everything just clicks,” Beever said of the streak, which dates back to April. “You don’t feel like you can do anything else.”

Cedar Cliff’s offense clicked first, pulling ahead 1-0 in the second after leadoff batter Donovan Ball singled and capitalized on a wild pitch and two grounders to score. The lead, which would prove to be the Colts only advantage of the game, was short-lived, however.

With runners on first and second in the bottom half of the inning, Beever laced a sin- gle down the first base line to bring in Adam Maser for the tying run.

Two innings later, Ephrata (24-3) would tack on a pair of insurance runs. Jacob Zimmerman, who stood on second as a courtesy runner after Schwartz doubled to left, advanced on a sac bunt and came around to score on a wild pitch.

Beever then delivered again, dropping a two-out RBI double into center. The senior would add another twoout RBI base hit in the sixth, driving in Zac McGillan, who picked up his second hit of the game with a double to the leftfield fence.

“After my first at bat it was just the confidence from that first hit, getting the first at bat in the game,” said Beever. “My second atbat, I was feeling fine.”

“By the third at-bat, I could just stand in the batter’s box all day,” he said with a laugh.

While the Ephrata offense was clicking, Cedar Cliff (16-6) was struggling against Schwartz. The senior needed just four pitches to get out of the first and held Cedar Cliff to just two hits without giving up a walk in the first six innings.

In fact, the Colts only had three base runners in the game before chasing Schwartz in the seventh.

A walk, an error and a single off the bat of Chris Dare loaded the bases for Cedar Cliff with no outs. In came reliever Hunter Johns, who struck out the first batter he faced on just three pitches.

A grounder to second marked the second out before Maser snared a fly ball to right, sending Ephrata into a celebration pile near the mound.

“We were told last summer that Section Two was going to be a dog fight,” Shelley recalled of the competition the Mounts faced to win the Lancaster-Lebanon League section title.

“We were grateful that we were invited to the dog fight. We like the dogpiles more, though,” he added with a laugh.

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