Exeter’s Colin Payne has hit an unlikely triple

Colin Payne loves each of his three of his sports: Football, basketball and baseball. Through four years at Exeter he refused to give up any of them.

It would’ve been easy to stop playing baseball in order to concentrate on the other two sports, which he plans to continue playing at Alvernia.

If he had stored his bat away for good he would’ve missed hitting an impressive triple: When the Eagles beat Red Land 2-0 Friday in a District 3 Class 5A state qualifier it cemented Payne’s third trip to the PIAA Tournament in his senior year.

Payne made it in football, where he quarterbacked the Eagles to a District 3 Class 5A championship; he made it in basketball, where he was the leading scorer.

Now he’s made it in baseball, his third-best sport, no doubt, but one he’s contributed to, as well. He had the only RBI, with a fifth-inning single, as the fifth-seeded Eagles beat the seventh-seeded Patriots to extend their season. He went 5-for-14 in the district tournament and scored four runs in four games.

It’s a rare accomplishment to be a key contributor on three teams that make the PIAA Tournament; in Payne’s case, none the trips have come easily.

Which has been the most unlikely?

“Tough question,” said Payne.

After pausing for a moment, he said he thought it was basketball, where the Eagles secured the seventh of nine spots available to District 3 teams. They squeezed in after back-to-back losses by beating Northeastern 58-55, a game in which Payne scored a team-high 21 points.

“The year before, we won (three games),” he said, “and we didn’t win that many games (this season). That team came together, and we played really good basketball at the end of the season.”

Exeter ended the regular season 10-11 and never got above .500 the rest of the way, but upset Wilson in the opening round of the league playoffs, then went on the road and upset Milton Hershey in its district opener.

The Eagles did all of their postseason damage without their No. 2 scorer, 6-7 Joey Schlaffer, the Penn State tight end recruit.

“When he went down, we were like: ‘What are we going to do now?’ ” Payne said.

The circumstances in football were not easy, either. Exeter, as the No. 7 seed, needed to win four district games, the last three on the road. It won at Manheim Central and Cedar Cliff to reach the district final for the first time. Once there it faced Gov. Mifflin, the top-ranked team in the state and one that had beaten the Eagles 54-21 just six weeks earlier.

“We got destroyed in that game, but we won the second half,” Payne said, “and we told ourselves we can beat ’em (next time), and we did.”

The Eagles pulled off their final upset, winning at Mifflin Stadium 49-14.

The baseball team, with 11 seniors, had high hopes but it also faced adversity to get this far. The low point came in a 4-1 loss to Conrad Weiser — a young team that finished 5-15 — that hurt the Eagles’ chances to make both the league and district playoffs.

“I thought that could be a game that really could cost us (in the district race),” said Exeter coach Justin Freese, “but they bounced back and won seven of their next eight games. Every time our backs are against the wall, they come out with a better effort.”

“(After the Weiser loss) we said, ‘This needs to turn around; this isn’t us,’ ” Payne said. “We expected a lot this year; (we figured) this should be a good season. If we (had) lost one more game than we lost, we would’ve been out of counties. So we had to pick it up.”

They did, winning seven of their next eight. They’ll open the PIAA Tournament Monday against District 1 champ Upper Dublin at 4 at Villanova Ballpark having won 11 of their last 14 games.

“The mood after that (Weiser) game was just: ‘Win out,’ ” said senior shortstop Luke Weller. ” ‘Destroy everybody.’ Other than the Muhlenberg game (an 11-2 regular season loss) we were just beating teams left and right. That (Weiser loss) just gave us a push to win out.”

The Eagles (18-7) were down to their last at-bat in their district opener against Twin Valley before scoring twice in the seventh to win 3-2.

Weller, saddled with a sore shoulder, couldn’t pitch in the next round and Exeter was pounded by Ephrata, 14-7. Deven Sheerin pitched brilliantly to keep the season alive in a 9-3 playback win over Red Land on the final day of May.

Weller, his arm suddenly feeling better, pitched an unlikely shutout Friday to send the Eagles to the state tournament for just the third time.

After making the state tournament in the fall and winter Payne came into the spring season hopeful of a triple crown.

“I thought, maybe I can make a little bit of history here at Exeter,” he said. “As the season kept going on, I got a little bit of doubt, but we really came together and stuck to it, and we’re here now. I haven’t won a game in states, so I’d love to win one.”