Gilbertsville tops Emmaus, ups Tri-County mark to 10-1

By Keith Groller
Of The Morning Call


By nipping host Emmaus 3-2 last night, Gilbertsville solidified its position atop the Tri-County League's South Division with its 10th win in 11 games.

But while owning a 10-1 record and first-place in a division would excite most clubs, the Rangers seem unfazed by it. In fact, as unbelievable as it may sound, they're sure they can do much better.

"We've done all right, but I think we're really just starting to get it together now," said veteran Jeff Evans, who slugged a pair of doubles and scored two runs last night as Gilbertsville battled back from an early 2-0 hole.

"We haven't been hitting the ball as well as we expected we would. We're finally getting all of our college kids now and the whole team is coming together. This was a good win for us here."

What made the win especially "good" was that it came over an Emmaus club that was right on the Rangers' heels in the South. The Braves, in just their third year in the Tri-Co, have been the league's surprise club through the first month of the season with an 8-2 mark entering last night's game at the Emmaus High School complex.

"We figured we'd be good this season, but we knew nobody else would expect us to be any good," said Brave manager Dave Ernst. "We've made steady improvement in our first two years in the league, going from 13-14 in our first season to 17-13 last year.

"This year, we picked up some pitchers like Steve Rau, Pat Toner and Dave Arndt and that should make us that much better. We've had the hitting in the past, but not the pitching."

The Braves had the bats booming early last night when they jumped on Ranger pitcher Chris Ludy for three hits and two runs in the first inning. Ernst's sacrifice fly and Kyle Fisher's single drove in the runs.

But despite having baserunners in each of the next four innings and getting two hits apiece in the third and fourth, Emmaus failed to score again.

In the third, Ludy escaped trouble with a double play. Then in the fourth, Ranger left fielder Kirk Rentschler threw out an Emmaus runner at the plate by about 10 yards as he foolishly tried to come around from second on a single.

Those squandered chances proved especially costly since Ludy settled down.

"Chris (Ludy) is the type of pitcher that gets stronger as the game goes on," Evans said. `He made some adjustments and got into a groove."

Speaking of grooves, Evans found one at the plate as he doubled and scored on singles by Bob Drumbore (3-for-3) in both the second and fourth as Gilbertsville came back to tie it.

"I'm the head coach at Oley Valley and we reached the quarterfinals of the PIAA State playoffs this year, so I was away from playing for some time," Evans said. "I haven't been getting the number of swings I normally get. But I'm starting to get it going."

Gilbertsville got the go-ahead run in the fifth when Chris Mackey doubled to left and scored on Rentschler's single to center. Ludy made the tally stand up as the winner, yielding just two hits over the last three innings.

"I haven't thrown for about 10 days and I'm the kind of guy who needs to pitch much more often to stay sharp," Ludy said. "I wasn't getting my curveball over early in the game and it's tough to throw from behind in the count when you don't have a curve. Later on, I found my curve and was getting ahead.

"Emmaus swings the bats well and plays fundamental baseball. They're going to be tough all season."

That's the Braves' plan.

"We feel we'll be there at the end," Ernst said. "This was a good ballgame between two good teams. I'm sure the fans enjoyed it. We just didn't come out on top. But we're not going to go away. We'll be back."



keith.groller@mcall.com

From The Morning Call -- June 16, 1992

Copyright © 1992, The Morning Call