Montoursville won consecutive one-run thrillers last week, capping the stretch when Cael Frame’s walk-off squeeze bunt scored Cole Johnson, helping the Warriors rally past Mifflinburg, 4-3.

And then the season ground to a halt.

Inclement weather, combined with a field built on a swamp and featuring little drainage, have kept Montoursville from playing since that exciting win against Mifflinburg eight days ago. The Warriors (7-4) were taking infield Thursday at Giles Field when rain swept through and inundated an already saturated field, forcing Montoursville’s game against defending District 2 Class AA champion Holy Cross to be postponed until Sunday afternoon.

That was the third Montoursville game postponed this week and means the Warriors will be playing their final nine games during a 12-game stretch beginning Friday against Berwick. With a lot of new starters and new contributors this season, things already were challenging. Now the test grows harder but this is the kind of time which embraces such challenges, so let the games begin.

“We’re a bunch of guys who like to work really hard,” infielder/pitcher Matthew Conklin said. “Our goal this year is to win a district title just like the previous teams. I think all of us in the dugout believe we can do that. We’re just coming to practice continuing to work hard and hopefully, come playoff time get hot and do what we have to do.”

“We were picking up some steam and games were matching up for us where we were going to be able to have our guys ready to go on the mound and be in a pretty good situation. This changes things a little bit, but people do this all the time,” Montoursville coach Jeremy Eck said. “We’re just going to fight. We’re going to find a way to piece it together. We’re going to find out how much they love it because we’re going to be playing every day.”

That is not an exaggeration. With the Holy Cross game tentatively scheduled for Sunday, that will kick off a four-day stretch of games with Thursday being the only off day before Montoursville opens its defense of its Backyard Brawl championship against Loyalsock next Friday. But Montoursville is not complaining. The Warriors are eager to pick up where they left off last week after winning those games against defending District 4 Class AAA champion Central Columbia and 4A rival Mifflinburg.

It has been a roller coaster ride thus far with Montoursville starting 3-0 before losing consecutive games. Conklin hit a dramatic, two-out, two-run, walk-off home run to snap that streak in a 6-5 win against Jersey Shore before the Warriors blanked Lewisburg, 12-0. Two losses followed but Montoursville picked itself up off the mat and charged back last week.

All four losses were against good teams: South Williamsport, Williamsport, Midd-West and Danville. Still, Montoursville made 10 errors in those contests and twice lost leads in the last few innings. As tough as the opponents were, Montoursville made things more difficult by often being its worst enemy.

“I’m not taking anything from anyone that beat us this year, but in a lot of those games everything has been self-inflicted. We’ve talked about how if we can clean up the mistakes, we’re a pretty quality team,” Eck said. “We can score some runs, and we have some guys that can throw strikes. We always have hung our hats on pitching extremely well and playing great defense and that’s what let us down early in the season. We know we have to clean up that and once we do that I think we’re a pretty quality team.”

That has shown through in some big wins. All seven wins have come against playoff contenders and Montoursville has displayed some impressive resilience numerous times. The Warriors are 5-0 in one-run games, overcoming a five-run deficit in the season opener against Central and twice winning on walk-off hits. Even in a loss at Williamsport, Montoursville displayed its resolve, cutting an eight-run deficit to one late in the game.

Both the HAC-II and District 4 Class AAAA feature deep, evenly-matched fields. Obviously, the Warriors would like making things easier on themselves when they play. Still, having that fighting spirit keeps the team optimistic no matter the circumstance.

“We never give up until the last out is made. We’re a bunch of grinders,” said Conklin, who is tied for the team lead in RBIs. “We work so hard and have worked so hard our whole lives for this season. We know that every win is important and every inning is important.”

One inning at a time, one pitch at a time. That is the approach, and really, it has to be right now. The games will coming at them so fast that Montoursville will have to display tunnel vision and stay focused on the task at hand.

This is a team eager to retake the field and eager to do something else–silence the doubters. Because Montoursville graduated some excellent players from last year’s district champion/state quarterfinalist, some might have written this 2023 off. Some focused on who left instead of who remained and who was coming up.

That is what these players believe and that is providing them extra incentive along their journey. They can talk about how they can build upon the program’s success or they can show it and that is Montoursville’s intention.

“It gave us some motivation knowing that nobody has really believed in us. I think we have the mentality that we’re going to go out and prove everybody wrong,” Conklin said. “I’ve been playing with these guys forever and we are so close-knit as a team, one of the most close-knit teams I’ve ever been on, and if we stick together we’re going to be dangerous.”