‘Lucky’ hit by Joey Berg propels Gov. Mifflin to District 3 championship game
2024 Berks baseball coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
By Jamie Yousaitis — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent
Joey Berg was trying to hit the ball on the ground, maybe find an opening through the infield, when he came to plate in the seventh inning Thursday, his Gov. Mifflin team still locked in a scoreless tie with Lampeter-Strasburg.
He did more than that.
His line drive to left field fell for a single and sent Travis Jenkins scurrying home from second base to give the top-seeded Mustangs a 1-0 walk-off win in a District 3 Class 5A semifinal at Rulon Griffith Field.
“I just ended up getting lucky, got a little early on one and put it in the gap,” Berg said, “and ‘Trav’ did a great job coming around to score.”
The hit sends the Mustangs (19-3) to the championship game Tuesday against No. 2 Mechanicsburg (18-3-1), a 4-0 winner over No. 6 Shippensburg. They’ll play at FirstEnergy Stadium at 6:30.
Berg, a senior, entered the game batting .341. The Mustangs had just one other hit, a single by Ethan Grim, before he stepped to the plate in the seventh inning.
“My first two at-bats, I didn’t have the best approaches,” Berg said. “I was really trying to pull the ball. My last at bat . . . everybody knows the way our field is with the hops that it can take so I was just trying to roll a ball.”
Berg’s hit looked so huge because Berks Player of the Year Bryce Detweiler delivered another sterling performance on the mound. The junior right-hander struck out a career-high 12 and allowed four hits in his second shutout of the tournament.
Detwiler improved to 8-2 and lowered his ERA to 1.55. He has struck out 68 batters over 54 innings, allowing 46 hits.
The shutout was the third straight for Mifflin, which beat Palmyra 3-0 in the quarterfinals behind Ethan Grim’s five-hitter and Garden Spot 1-0 in the opening round.
Before Monday Mifflin, which played its first district game in 1979, had never posted back-to-back shutouts in tournament play.
“When you’ve got a guy like ‘B-Det’ and Grim you can go out there and just shove,” Berg said. “We try and put up as many runs as we can but with the great district that District 3 is, I mean you’re gonna see good pitchers every round. It’s always going to be a dogfight.”
The Mustangs have scored just five runs in three district games but find themselves playing for the championship for the first time since 2021, when they lost to Wilson. The Mustangs have never won a district title.
Detweiler allowed a first-inning walk and scattered four hits, escaping minor jams in the first and third innings before settling into his rhythm.
Mifflin was hitless until Grim led off the fifth with a single off right-hander Devin Aponte. Aponte struck out only two for 12th-seeded Lampeter-Strasburg (15-8) but kept the Mustangs off-balance at the plate.
Nate Radwanski sacrificed Grim to second but Aponte got Matt Koehler to fly out to right and Berg to ground out back to the mound to end the inning.
Jenkins had a 10-pitch at-bat to open the seventh; he reached on an error by first baseman Anthony Turek on a hard-hit grounder. Grim grounded out to first to advance Jenkins to second.
Dylan Barrett was hit by a pitch. Matt Koehler lined out to left for the second out before Berg singled.
Mifflin’s Dante Casantini hit a towering shot in the third inning that appeared to go over the right-field foul pole but the ball was ruled foul. After a conference among the three umps, the ruling was upheld.
