Leslie hooks Longhorns in TCL

The Lehigh Township righty strikes out 13 in quarterfinal opener.


By Tim Shoemaker
Special to The Morning Call

 

Brandon Leslie struck out 13 in a four-hitter to lead Lehigh Township to a 7-2 win over Cetronia Saturday night at Bryfogle Memorial Park in the first game of a best-of-three Tri-County League playoff quarterfinal series.

While striking out 13 of the 25 batters he faced is impressive enough, consider how he got most of them -- nine of the 13 strikeouts were on called third strikes.

"He was hitting his spots," Lehigh Township manager Shawn Andrews said. "[Eric] Schmitt called a good game behind the plate. He's a good pitcher. This is the kind of start we needed at the beginning of the playoffs."

Counting the three regular-season wins, second-seeded Lehigh Township (26-11) is now 4-0 against seventh-seeded Cetronia (20- 17). The Longhorns must win today's second game, scheduled for 5 p.m. at Cetronia's Cedar Brook Park, in order to force a deciding final game on Tuesday.

Leslie had no strikeouts in the fourth inning but at least two in every other inning including three in the third, when -- curiously -- Cetronia scored its two runs.

He said his dominance was the by-product of having command of two pitches at the same time.

"Toward the end of the game, I started to locate both the off-speed and the fastball," Leslie said. "Schmitty and I were communicating well, and I was locating my fastball on the corners. The umpire was giving them to me, so I stayed out there."

Leslie did not pitch as many innings as he would have liked this season, but that might be a good thing -- his arm is fresher than usual.

"I had a little break there for a while for about a month when I didn't pitch as much as I wanted, but that's okay," Leslie said. "They needed to get guys in. Our pitching's tough. We have a tough staff."

The Brewers jumped on Cetronia starter Brad Sechler for three runs in the second inning and four in the third. Every Lehigh starter except one had at least one base hit and five -- Steve Smull, Schmitt, Bill Fatzinger, Nick Bowen and Charlie Torres -- had two each.

Jeremy Bartha doubled in Steve Unger, then scored on Bill Fatzinger's double just inside the left-field line and just out of the reach of Longhorns third baseman Mike Coll. Charlie Torres singled in Fatzinger to make it 3-0.

Cetronia got two runs back in the third when Chris Peters drove in Ryan Zimmerman on an infield single and Brian Polaha also scored on an error on the same play. Leslie got out of the jam by striking out Luke Bricker and was not in trouble the rest of the game.

Only two other players reached base against Leslie the rest of the way, both in the fourth inning.

Both, coincidentally, were thrown out on the bases. Mark Jarrell reached on an error, but was erased on a fielder's choice, and Jim Healey was thrown out stealing to end the inning.

Healey was ejected for arguing the call and according to league rules, will not be eligible for today's game.

"We didn't catch a couple fly balls early in the game," Longhorns manager George Horn said. "Mentally, we didn't play very well today."

The Brewers opened up the close game with four runs in the third. Schmitt doubled in Smull, Omar Torres doubled in Schmitt, Fatzinger singled in Torres, then Charlie Torres singled in Fatzinger.

Sechler, whom Horn considered taking out so that he could pitch in relief today, shut out the Brewers in the final three innings.

"I don't know what it was, whether we had a 7-2 lead and thought we were safe," Andrews said. "But Sechler settled down, too. I don't want to take anything away from him. He settled down and got in a groove.

"They're going to be a hard team to put away. We have to show up [today] in the right frame of mind."


Cetronia                002 000 0 -- 2  4  0

Lehigh Township   034 000 x -- 7 13 2


Sechler and C. Peters. Leslie and Schmitt.

Tim Shoemaker is a freelance writer.

From The Morning Call -- July 28, 2002

Copyright © 2002, The Morning Call