Lititz reaches LNP Midget semi-finals

Lititz Oddfellows’ base runner Colin Brubaker beats the throw to Lancaster catcher Alex Polito while scoring on Evan Rohrbach’s two-run base hit in the first inning in Monday night’s LNP Midget Tournament quarterfinal-round game. Photo by Kirk Neidermyer

First-inning rally holds up in Oddfellows’ win over Lancaster

The Lititz Oddfellows looked at Monday night’s duel as a championship game.

In actuality, it was an LNP Midget Tournament quarterfinal-round match-up, but they know better than to look past anyone.

After all, Lititz not only won the title in 2017, it has won four of the past seven.

“The old cliché is we’re taking it one game at a time,” Oddfellows’ coach Bill Weismandel said.

“We kinda have that chip on our shoulder that we’re the team to run for,” catcher John Seibert said, “as back-to-back LNP champs.”

Facing No. 8-seeded Lancaster, top-seeded Lititz (24-0-1) took a step in the right direction toward their goal of repeating, scoring all of their runs in the first inning and then getting 5 1/3 solid innings from lefty Jackson Davies in a 4-2 win at Clipper Magazine Stadium.

The Oddfellows were hoping to punch their ticket back to the finals in Wednesday night’s Final Four against back-yard rival Manheim, a 1-0 winner over Penn Manor, after deadline.

During the regular season, Manheim was the only team whom the Oddfellows didn’t beat, as the two teams battled to a nine-inning 5-5 tie on July 10.

“Very good team, well-coached,” Weismandel said of the Manheim VFW.

The same can be said for the Oddfellows, who capitalized on five consecutive base hits in the first inning off of Lancaster pitcher Seth Winters, who suffered the complete-game loss.

With two outs, Colby Martin rocketed a triple into the right-center field gap and scored on Collin Beech’s RBI knock. After Zach Shertzer singled, Seibert connected on a 1-1 pitch from Winters for an RBI base hit to right-center.

“I’m seeing the ball,” said Seibert, who went 2-for-3 in the game, “That’s the main thing, for me, is tracking the ball. Coach has been talking to me about, ‘You’ve got to read the off-speed.’”

From there, Lititz’s rally continued when Evan Rohrbach’s two-run base hit stretched its lead to 4-0 before Winters finally got out of the inning.

“It helps a lot (having a balanced lineup),” Seibert said. “There’s a lot of confidence before you and behind you. I mean, we could pretty much put anyone at the three-hole or four-hole, to be honest.”

Meanwhile, Davies — mixing three pitches for strikes — started the game with two perfect innings while throwing only 23 total pitches.

But in the top of the third, Lancaster’s Evan Pruix got Lancaster’s first hit, a floater to left field. Nate Santiago then worked a nine-pitch walk and both runners moved up on Bryam Menendez’s sacrifice bunt. Leadoff batter Dylan Esh followed with an RBI ground out to short and Mason Lee added a run-scoring single to center, cutting the Oddfellows’ lead to 4-2. Alex Dominguez was given an intentional free pass, but Davies escaped further trouble by getting Danny Gonzalez to ground out.

In all, the Lititz southpaw scattered four hits in the game, while striking out two and walking three.

“Jackson was Jackson,” Weismandel said. “He’s going to keep us in games, throw strikes, and keep his defense involved. They made the most of the (third inning) when they scored their couple runs. They got a couple key hits, but Jackson is generally going to keep us in games.”

The Oddfellows had opportunities in the fourth when Seibert singled and went to second on an error with one out, and then again in the fifth, as Adam Ricketts singled, then Max Bright and Colby Martin both walked, loading the bases with two outs. But Lititz was unable to add on to its lead.

In fact, they managed only two more hits off Winters after the first inning.

“I think sometimes it’s tough for the approach to stay as good as it was that first inning,” Weismandel said. “We knew Winters was going to be a pitcher who was going to be around the dish the whole night and our game plan was executed really well in the first inning. And then we sorta fell into his method, which is pitch to contact and get a lot of fly ball outs and things like that.”

With Lititz still clinging to a two-run lead, Lancaster got its leadoff batters on base in the sixth and seventh innings. But Colin Brubaker came out of the ‘pen to pitch the final 1 2/3 innings, getting a key Colby Martin-to-Brendan Martin-to-Bright double play in the final frame, to nail it down.

And with that, the Oddfellows turned their sights toward LNP semi-finals.

“Wednesday will be the next championship game,” Weismandel said.

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