Kutztown’s season ended by Mount Union one step shy of championship game

NEWVILLE — When it was finally over – when Mount Union right fielder Je’saun Robinson swooped in to snare Nick Hugo’s fly ball – Kutztown shortstop Matt Remick stood along the first base line, stared into a vacant center field, and reflected.

He didn’t want to leave the field for the last time as a high school athlete.

“It sucks that it ended this way,” he said after the Cougars fell to the Trojans 5-2 Tuesday in a PIAA Class 2A semifinal at Big Spring. “You always want to walk off the field with a win, but it didn’t happen that way.”

The District 3 champion Cougars (19-7) fell one step short of playing for a state championship and one win short of matching the program record for wins.

For the first time since the start of district play three week ago they met their match.

“Their stats numbers,” Kutztown coach Tim Mertz said of Mount Union, “they all proved out: They were a pretty good, darned team.”

The District 6 runner-up Trojans (25-2) had the Cougars on their heels from the first pitch of the game when Cameron Donaldson deposited Bryce Schafer’s first offering over the left field fence for a homer.

Mount Union got a one-out single from Ryan Plank later in the first and had runners on second and third before Schafer wiggled out of the jam with a pair of strikeouts.

“It’s a little demoralizing, going down 1-0 after one pitch in the game,” Remick said. “That might’ve been the first time we trailed all the playoffs. We just couldn’t climb back from it.”

Mount Union right-hander Bryce Danish made sure of that. Though he lost the plate a few times and worked a lot of deep counts he never offered the Cougars anything they could square up or drive.

They put plenty of runners on base against him – eight over his five innings – but didn’t plate a run until the sixth, after Danish was gone and after the Trojans had built a 5-0 lead.

Danish allowed just a pair of singles and struck out seven.

“There’s a good pitcher over there and he made good pitches,” said Cougars captain and catcher Nick Hugo. “He kept us off-balanced. Nobody ever knew what pitch was coming, whether it was the fastball or the slider.”

The Cougars had their best chance in the fifth, when the fading Danish walked a batter and hit another. A wild pitch and a stolen base gave Schafer an opportunity for a couple of RBIs but his liner into the right-center gap fell into the glove of Landon Chrisemer and Kutztown’s best chance was gone.

The Cougars left nine runners on base and were just 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position. They finished with four hits; they had eight or more in their four previous district and state playoff games, in which they batted .351. Of course, they didn’t face a team as strong as Mount Union.

The Trojans’ only losses this season have come to Bald Eagle, the team they’ll face Friday morning for the PIAA championship.

“Maybe the pressure got to us a little bit,” Remick said. “All year we’ve been calm and level-headed and come up in the big moments, but it just didn’t happen this time. (Danish) got the best of us.”

The Cougars broke through with a pair of runs in the sixth and could’ve had more if not for a controversial call that went against them.

With runners on first and second and one out, Corey Gilbert hit a roller behind the second base bag. Donaldson, the shortstop, fielded it and flipped it Chrisemar. The second baseman juggled the ball, then dropped it. The umpire ruled theat he possessed the ball long enough for the force out and dropped it during the exchange, though those on the Kutztown bench saw it otherwise.
Mertz said his view was blocked by the second baseman but that his coaches thought it should have been ruled an error all the way, which would’ve given Kutztown the bases loaded with one out, trailing 5-1.

“There was nothing clean about it,” Mertz said of the second baseman’s exchange. “That was very big.”

The call loomed bigger when Colin Diehl delivered an RBI single and Ashton Dunn reached on a bad-hop single off Chrisemar that allowed Gilbert to score.

Bad call or not, the Trojans were able to hit Kutztown’s best pitcher, knocking Schafer around for 11 hits, including a pair of homers and four extra-base hits. They were just the second team to score as many as five runs against the Cougars over their last 11 games.

“Early in the game, I don’t think Bryce was mixing pitches well,” Mertz said. “Then he got into a rhythm; they were still putting the ball in play but not like that first inning. I thought he bounced back real well after that first inning. We just couldn’t put any runs on the board.”

A win would’ve sent Kutztown to the PIAA championship game for the first time since 2007.

Their success, Mertz said all season, rested of the strength of their seniors: Remick, Hugo, Schafer, Dominick Pizzelanti and Dalton Furst.

“That’s a special group,” Mertz said.

“We still have a lot to be proud of for the season,” Remick said, “(we) just came up one game short of (making it to) the state championship.”

Mount Union	2	0	0	0	1	2	0	–	5	11	3
Kutztown	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	–	2	4	1

Trojans	R	H	RBI		Cougars	AB	R	H	RBI
Donaldson, ss	1	2	2		Remick, ss	4	0	1	0
Knable, c	1	1	1		Schuler, 3b	3	0	0	0
Hunsinger, 3b	1	1	0		Schafer, p/1b	3	0	1	0
Atherton, 2b/p/lf	0	1	0		Bergstrom, cr	0	0	0	0
Plank, lf/1b	0	1	0		Furst, lf	3	1	0	0
Danish, p/cf	1	2	0		Hugo, c	3	0	0	0
Scott, 1b/p	0	0	0		Pizzelanti, 2b	3	0	0	0
Chrisemar, rf/2b	1	2	1		Hamm, dh	3	0	0	0
Robinson, cf	0	1	0		Mathias, 1b/p	0	0	0	0
					Gilbert, dh	1	1	0	0
					Diehl, rf	1	0	1	1
					Dunn, cf	3	0	1	1
Totals	5	11	4			25	2	4	2

E: Donaldson, Scott, Hugo.  2B. Danish, Donaldson.  HR: Donaldson, Knable. SB: Hugo, Schuler.  CS: Danish.   LOB: Mount Union 8, Kutztown 9. 

	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K			IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
Danish, W (10-1)	5	2	0	0	3	7		Schafer, L (6-3)	5 1/3	11	5	4	2	7
Atherton	1	1	2	1	2	0		Mathias	1 2/3	0	0	0	1	2
Scott, S (1)	1	0	0	0	1	1

WP: Danish. HBP: Hunsicker (by Mathias), Schulker (by Danish).