Coplay blasts its way to a 11-4 Tri-Co win

By Keith Groller
Of The Morning Call


The Coplay team in the Tri-County Baseball League almost folded up last winter.

A bunch of pitchers around the league would have been glad to help pack away the uniforms had the team disbanded because Coplay is back making life miserable for opposing Tri-Co hurlers with the kind of offensive torture it unleashed last night in an 11-4 rout of Gilbertsville at Boyertown Junior High East.

The Whitehall Township club battered Gilbertsville pitching for 17 hits, including 11 in a nine-run sixth inning, enroute to its its 14th win in 17 games. The Rangers, Coplay's long-time rivals from the South Division, are now 13-7 after being chewed up by the big bats from the North.

Player-manager Lou Falco is the guy who decided the keep Coplay offensive machine purring along.

"We almost didn't even have a team because we didn't have a coach, so I sort of decided to take things over," said Falco, who has been with the team since its inception in 1983. "Everyone really rallied around. It was a shame to have all this talent go to waste. We've just been hitting like crazy all season. Other than a few close games earlier in the year, we've just been dominating the other teams."

Even when Coplay was being dominated early last night by Gilbertsville lefthander Lew Chillot, Falco says he wasn't worried.

"We knew we were going to come back," said the skipper, whose team owns a slim lead over the Allentown Angels in the Tri-Co's North Division race. "We're a very confident team this year. We come out each nightknowing that we're going to win. If you look at our stats everyone is hitting over .300 . . . we're solid up and down the lineup."

Coplay was silent up and down the lineup for the first three innings last night as Chillot had a no-hitter going for 3 1/3 and Gilbertsville had a 3-0 lead, thanks to a home run by Pete Kurtz and an RBI-double by Rob Trace in the second and an RBI-single by Jeff Chillot in the third.

But Chillot lost his no-hitter when Falco singled in the fourth and he lost his shutout one batter later when Scott Morgan (3-for-4, 3 runs, 3 RBI) ripped a two-run home run that got lost in the trees in deep left.

Chillot still had the one-run lead when he went to the mound in the sixth, but he left drowning in a flood of line drives and rainbows to the gap.

Morgan's infield single started it and Mark Csencsits moved him to third with a ground-rule double. Jeff Sodl singled to left to tie it and stole second. The throw got away and skipped into center field, allowing Csencsits to score the go-ahead tally.

Coplay made sure Gilbertsville catcher Bill Krall wouldn't have to wear any goat horns, however, as it followed with its version of the Fifth of July Fireworks.

Six straight hits - RBI-singles by Russ Reinhard, Kevin Hutter, Randy Remaly and RBI-doubles by Chuck Mondschein, Falco and Morgan - made it 10-3 and started a parade of Gilbertsville pitchers between the bench and rubber. Sodl's second hit of the inning capped the scoring and when the smoke cleared, Coplay sent 14 men to the plate, banged out 11 hits and owned an 11-3 lead.

The eight-run cushion made life easy for Coplay pitcher Jim Emerick, who surrendered an RBI-single to Rob Trace in the sixth but didn't allow the Rangers to rally any closer.

"This is the fourth game in a row that we scored 10 runs or more and we're averaging seven or eight a game which really helps out the pitching," said Emerick, who wound up with an 11-hitter. "With a big lead, all you have to do is throw strikes. That's basically what I did tonight.

"Most of these guys have been together from our high school and legion days. We've always had very good teams. We're just happy to still have a team. It gives us something to do in the summer."

QUAKERTOWN 3, ALLENTOWN ANGELS 3 - Dale Weiss's sixth inning home run tied this Trico game which was called for darkness in the bottom of the seventh. It will be played over from the start on Friday, July 15.

The Angel's (13-4) made the most of their four hits - a single by Herb Henningly that spoiled Scott Davis's no-hitter in the fifth inning, a single by Rick Wittman that scored Henningly in the same inning, and the two-run homer by Weiss.

Quakertown (11-5) had nine hits, with Mike Schaffer and Steve Bauder both having two each. Davis and Bob Kile both had solo home runs for Quakertown. Ray Ganser had seven strikeouts for Allentown.



keith.groller@mcall.com

From The Morning Call -- July 6, 1988

Copyright © 1988, The Morning Call