Mounts outlast Knights

It wasn’t the way you’d dream of doing it, but two walks and two hit-by-pitches gave Ephrata a dramatic 6-5, eight-inning win over Hempfield in a nonleague baseball game at War Memorial Field Friday.

\The extra-inning hero was probably relief pitcher Brenden Kapczynski, who came to the plate with two on and nobody out. He tried to bunt, failed, got behind 0-2 and then fouled off some tough pitches before working a walk to load the bases.

Then Ryan Bromirski, who had earlier driven in three runs and threw a Hempfield runner out at the plate, walked to end it.

It was a tense, grind-it-out night, a game between Lancaster-Lebanon League powers without power pitching or power hitting; neither side had an extra-base hit.

“The end results are not what’s important,’’ Ephrata coach Adrian Shelley said. “What’s important is every guy was grinding out at-bats, and that carries over to better results.’’

The Mounts scored three in the first inning off Hempfield starter Austin Dunlap, on singles by Coy Schwanger, Drew Hurst and Aaron Hershberger, and a couple of productive outs, including a sacrifice fly RBI by Bromirski.

Hempfield came back to get two on with one out in the top of the second, but Ephrata starter Tanner McCracken got a strikeout, and the inning ended with a dramatic flourish, as Bromirski rifled a strike home from left field to get the third out at the plate on Gavin Constein’s single.

Hempfield came up with a four-run third, benefiting hugely from an infield error and getting sac-fly RBIs from Peter Fiore and Dunlap.

And so it went. Hempfield tied it in the seventh on a walk and clutch singles by Dunlap and Chuck Sheerer. Kapczynski got the Black Knights in order in the top of the eighth.

Hempfield, 10-4, had won eight of nine.

Ephrata is now 8-1, its lone loss a 3-2 setback to L-L Section Two rival Lampeter-Strasburg.

The Mounts took their lumps as a very young group a year ago. They seem to be back.

“We figured out how to win in the summertime,’’ Shelley said. “We played in a very competitive fall league and that helped us quite a bit.’’

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