Gilbertsville extends Tri-County domination

By Ted Meixell
Of The Morning Call


It has often been said that one of the truest measures of a quality team is its ability to play at less than its best in a big game -- and still win.

A calm yet obviously proud Ryan Fox reiterated that very thought last night in the growing darkness at Scherersville after his Gilbertsville club extended its domination of the Tri-County League with an 8-3 victory over the host Allentown Angels.

Fox took over the managerial duties at Gilbertsville last year. With last night's win, he's batting a perfect 1.000: it capped his second consecutive sweep of the TCL's regular season and playoff championships.

"Yup," he said, "this is two in a row for us, so I'm 2-for-2 coaching. This club has had an awful lot of success in this league before that, too. But I honestly can't reel it all off for you."

Fox did admit that such a long string of success can make players a bit blasé, and that it is sometimes difficult to fire his gang up. "A lot of times it is, in the middle of the summer," he said. "But when you get to this point it's no problem. This is what you play for. We've become used to success, and we want to continue it."

Fox added that he and his team feel a special sense of accomplishment after winning this year, because it was accomplished over an Angels club he says is vastly improved, even over last year.

"That's a very good team over there," he said. "No question about it, they're much better than they used to be, their pitching is so much better. They were good last year, too, but they rose to a different level this year.

"Still, I thought we proved we're the best team in the league. We won five of six games against the second best team."

Fox got no argument from veteran Angel skipper Ray Ganser. "They're just the better team," Ganser said. "They proved it. They beat us five times, we only beat them once. They just don't make mistakes; they refuse to beat themselves.

"I've been with this team about 12 years. For a long time, we could never find a winning combination -- but I had fun playing anyway. The last three years, though, we've developed into a good, young team. To be honest, I thought this would be the year. We won our division (North) for the first time ever, and we were 1-1 with Gilbertsville in the regular season.

"But they're tough. They beat up on us in the postseason, both in the regular season playoffs and this series."

It was fitting that Gilbertsville's two MVP types -- righthanded pitcher Scott Mutter and leftfielder Jeff Evans -- played major roles last night.

Mutter, already named the league's most valuable pitcher, went five innings to pick up his eighth win against a single loss. He did, however, need help from righthander Chris Ludy when the Angels, at that point down by just 4-2, loaded the bases (on Rick Wittman's single to right, an error and a walk to Tony Galucy) with none out in the bottom of the sixth.

Ludy, 9-2, pitched seven innings for the win in the series opener just 24 hours earlier. He eased out of the jam by getting Jeff Snyder to bounce into a double play (with a run scoring to make it 4-3) and Dave Lutte on a groundout.

Gilbertsville then gave him plenty of breathing room with a four- spot in the seventh --and Evans, the league's most valuable player, was right in the thick of it. Evans, who belted a solo homer leading off the second inning, slammed a two-run single to make it 7-3 after two walks, Brian Gilbert's bunt single and an error had produced the first run of the inning.

Gilbert scored the final run himself, on the front end of a first- and-third, delayed steal play. Ludy then breezed through the bottom of the seventh to close it out.

Earlier, Marty Bauer had a pair of RBI-singles and Mike Moyer singled in another run. Allentown's earlier runs scored on Dale Weiss's RBI-double to left-center and a bases-loaded walk to Mookie Smith.

"With the exception of one game against Upper Perkiomen (a 7-7 tie), we played very well through the playoffs," Fox said. "Until tonight; we didn't play well at all tonight."

And then, he said it. "But good teams find a way to win even when they don't play well. That's what we did tonight."



  

From The Morning Call -- August 16, 1991

Copyright © 1990, The Morning Call