KINGSTON – Back Mountain American managed to take the bat away from Jake Griffin in Wednesday night’s Pennsylvania District 31 Little League Baseball major baseball semifinal.
But no matter how much it adjusted, Back Mountain American could not get the ball away from Griffin until it was much too late.
Griffin worked five full innings on the mound while combining with Akira Kopec, the only female player in the game, on a one-hitter with 15 strikeouts to lead Kingston/Forty Fort to an 8-0 victory.
“He’s definitely one of the best pitchers in the Valley,” Back Mountain American manager Bob Klinetob said. “We knew what he was capable of.
“We had to come in with a game plan.”
Klinetob issued intentional walks to Griffin in all of his plate appearances, each of the first three innings, including once with the bases loaded to drive in a run. Griffin still contributed on the base paths, scoring twice, including the team’s final run.
Griffin made a bigger impact on the mound. He handled all but one out in five innings, striking out 13 and fielding a grounder back to him.
“He’s a generational talent,” Kingston/Forty Fort manager Joe Evan said. “He’s a once-in-a-generation player that you’ll see come through here and play.
“The way that he attacks the strike zone; he has a great off-speed pitch, but you didn’t see that much tonight. … The great thing about it is I think he got better as the game went on.”
At the plate, Back Mountain American took limited swings at Griffin’s overpowering fastball early in the game, choosing instead to bunt, fake bunt and take pitches.
“It was a little unorthodox,” Klinetob said. “We had to take the pitches. We had to drive the pitch count up. We knew that if we were going to face the best, we had to try to get the best out of the game.”
Griffin finished the fifth inning one pitch short of the limit at 84. Kopec took it from there, throwing three balls, then following it with nine straight strikes in a 1-2-3 sixth inning.
Shane Healey singled to right-center field leading off the fourth for the only Back Mountain American hit.
Griffin walked four and hit two batters, both while loading the bases in the top of the second. But he got his first four outs on called third strikes and fanned eight looking total in the game.
Kingston/Forty Fort had all eight of its runs in the first 2 2/3 before BMA starter Dusty Shaver settled in to retire the last seven batters he faced. It got much of its offense with aggressive base running on wild pitches and took advantage of three sacrifice flies while scoring four times each in the first and second innings.
“All through the lineup, we’re trying to make the best of our at-bats,” Evan said. “We’ve talked about that. Though we’ve scored quite a bit, we’ve had some runs where we’ve left a lot of runners in scoring position.
“We’re conscious of it. We really wanted to work on it. Let’s make sure with runners in scoring position that we keep moving them around with good baserunning and putting the ball in play.”
Eight of the nine starters either scored or drove in a run.
John McLaughlin had a run-scoring single in the first and a sacrifice fly in the second.
Davis Motyka had the only extra-base hit with a lead-off double before scoring the first run of the second inning. Luke Bass had a run-scoring single in the first. Luke Kopec and Akira Kopec had the other sacrifice flies.
The win sends Kingston/Forty Fort into Monday’s District 31 championship game at Pittston Township against Back Mountain National, a 13-2, four-inning winner over Northwest in Wednesday’s other semifinal. Kingston/Forty Fort won the first meeting between the two teams, 2-1, during pool play.
Back Mountain National 13,
Northwest 2
Nick Spencer pitched a four-inning no-hitter as Back Mountain National had little problem moving into the District 31 Little League major baseball championship game.
Spencer and Gavin Adamski slugged home runs in the win, and Adamski added two singles. Cole Mario had two hits and scored four run for Back Mountain National, Gradeon Finarelli had a double, a single and scored a run and Joe Shiskowski finished with two hits in the victory.
Back Mountain National will face Kingston/Forty Fort for the title Monday at the Pittston Township Little League field.
Carter Hontz scored both runs for Northwest.
SECTION 5
JUNIOR SOFTBALL
Kingston/Forty Fort 5,
Pittston 2
Jess Skladzien pitched a complete-game one-hitter and struck out 13 batters, leading Kingston/Forty Fort past Pittston into the Section 5 championship finals.
Skladzien also had a triple and two RBI in the victory, while Sara Hoskins, Julia Franks and Ali Keener also had key hits for Kingston/Forty Fort.
Bea Lieback singled for the only hit for Pittston, which will face Old Forge in an elimination game at 8 p.m. Thursday.
The winner of that game will advance to meet Kingston/Forty Fort in the finals of the double-elimination tournament Friday.
District 31 Semifinals
Kingston/Forty Fort 8,
Back Mountain American 0
American`AB`R`H`BI
Borton 2b`3`0`0`0
Shaver p`3`0`0`0
Koons ss`3`0`0`0
Klinetob c`2`0`0`0
Puza rf`1`0`0`0
Grebeck rf`1`0`0`0
Rosencrans 1b`1`0`0`0
Healey 1b`2`0`1`0
Aiello 2b`1`0`0`0
Delayo 2b`2`0`0`0
Moss lf`1`0`0`0
Hite 3b`0`0`0`0
Totals`20`0`1`0
Kingston/FF`AB`R`H`BI
Evan rf`3`1`1`0
Matlowski rf`1`0`0`0
Sgarlat ss`1`2`1`0
Griffin p,2b`0`2`0`1
A. Kopec 2b,p`1`1`0`1
Buss 1b`3`1`1`1
L. Kopec 3b`1`0`0`2
Bowen ph`1`0`0`0
McLaughlin c`2`0`1`2
Lopuhovsky lf`2`0`0`0
Zekus ph`1`0`0`0
Motyka cf,2b`2`1`1`0
Matello ph`1`0`0`0
Totals`19`8`5`7
BM American`000`001`—`0
Kingston/FF`440`00x`—`8
American`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Shaver (L)`5`5`8`5`4`5
Kingston/FF`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Griffin (W)`5`1`0`0`4`13
A. Kopec`1`0`0`0`0`2
