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Williamsport 9-11 baseball all-stars beat Montoursville to win districts

By GARRETT CARR 3 min read

Montoursville held down a potent Williamsport offense through four innings during Tuesday’s's District 12 9-11 baseball championship game at Volunteer Stadium in South Williamsmport, and Williamsport came up to bat in the top of the fifth inning locked into a 2-2 tie.

The Williamsport bats suddenly came to life.

Williamsport scored seven runs in a huge fifth inning en route to an 11-2 win to capture the district championship.

"We knew that (Montoursville starting pitcher) Reid Francis was going to be a good pitcher. He dominated the strike zone. He threw well. He's a really competitive kid, and they've got a good pitcher over there," Williamsport manager Ryan Miller said. "We just wanted to grind and get him out of the game. We felt like if we got him out of the game, we had an opportunity to put a big inning up. And that's what we did."

That fifth-inning rally was sparked by the bottom part of the order. Sebastian Sanders, the No. 8 hitter, led off the inning with a single and ended up scoring on a wild pitch with one out. Montoursville looked like it could get out of the inning after getting the second out and only surrendering the one run, but a hit batter and two walks brought in a run. A single followed through the left side by Joseph Cochran which scored three runs after an error to make it 7-2.

Ryder Tate followed that up with a triple off the wall in right field and Williamsport tallied their seventh run of the inning on another walk to bring the score to 9-2.

Williamsport's aggression on the base paths paid huge dividends in its big inning. Speed up and down the lineup created issues for the Montoursville defense.

"That's what we've been practicing now for six weeks. We put a lot of time into really prepping the kids on the base pass, because we felt at this level, if you can control and put pressure on the defense, a lot of times, they're going to make mistakes," Miller said.. "We successfully did what we were trying to do, and that's why we were able to get to those runs."

While it took a while for the Williamsport offense to hit its stride, pitcher Jordan Swigart was spectacular from the start. The right-hander pounded the strike zone, surrendering just five hits and one walk while getting all eighteen outs with six pitches to spare before hitting the 85-pitch limit. Swigart mixed his pitches well and trusted the defense behind him to make plays.

"We wanted him to be efficient, and he certainly was. The biggest thing for us, like I said, was commanding the count, staying ahead. He didn't have his best stuff tonight, but he made them put the ball in play," Miller said. "We made plays behind him -- some really good defensive plays. Jordan's a competitive kid, and he wanted this one badly, just like everyone else. When he gets on the mound and finds that zone, you're just counting outs at that point. You feel like if you can scratch a few runs across, you've got a great chance to win the game."

Wiilliamsport opened the scoring with two runs in the second on a Sanders RBI single and an overthrow on an attempted caught stealing. Montoursville tied the game on a two-RBI single by Everhett Heasley in the third, but that's all the Montoursville offense could muster.

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