DALLAS TWP. — Abington took a huge gamble Monday night and it paid off with a victory.
Fireballing ace Jake Kwiatkowski was pulled after two innings and 35 pitches and the game was handed over to reliever Jerry Jordan.
Jordan proceeded to hold Back Mountain National to one run and one hit over four innings as Abington won 4-3 in the Section 5 Little League Major Baseball winners bracket final.
District 17 champion Abington will now be off until Wednesday and will await the winner of Tuesday’s elimination game between District 31 champ National and District 16 champ Plains. Those teams play at 7:30 p.m. at the Back Mountain Little League.
Moreover, Abington will have Kwiatkowski available on Wednesday.
“You’re always playing for today, tomorrow and the next day,” Abington manager John Kwiatkowski said. “You really have to manage your pitch counts. We had a game plan going in and stuck with our game plan.
“Fortunately, the two pitchers we had on the mound, Jake and Jerry, did very well. Back Mountain is a tough team. They hit the ball very well. To hold them to three runs in fantastic.”
The game was scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m., but didn’t begin until 9:45 p.m. because of a long rain delay during the second game of a tripleheader at Back Mountain. It ended at 11:10 p.m.
National showed its hitting prowess early as Ben Nulton belted a home run to dead center with two outs in the first and Nick Federici led off the second with a homer to left.
National had just one more hit — an RBI single by Mitch Ronczka in the third. Jordan retired National in order in the fourth and sixth innings, and a 3-6 double play eliminated any problems in the fifth.
Abington snapped a 3-3 tie in the fourth when Shane Goldberg scored on a wild pitch. He had singled with one out, moved to second on a single by Pat Donahue and to third when Flynn Volchoff walked to load the bases.
Abington scored its first run in the first when Daniel Spanish was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. A couple blooper singles to short right by Donahue and Kevin Conaboy helped produce two more runs in the second.
Section 5 Major Baseball
Abington 4, Back Mountain National 3
Back Mtn. National`AB`R`H`BI
VanValkenburgh ss`2`0`0`0
DeFalco 2b`2`0`0`0
Nulton cf`2`1`1`1
Samanas c`2`0`0`0
Federici p`2`1`1`1
Engel rf`2`0`0`0
Kovach eh`2`0`0`0
Lapidus 1b`2`0`0`0
Medrano 3b`1`1`0`0
Greblunas lf`2`0`0`0
Dieffenbacher eh`0`0`0`0
Ronczka eh`1`0`1`1
Totals`20`3`3`3
Abington`AB`R`H`BI
Jordan 3b`3`1`0`0
Kwiatkowski p`2`0`0`0
Wilson lf`3`0`0`0
Thomas 1b`2`0`0`0
Hillebrand eh`1`0`0`0
Spanish rf`1`0`0`1
Goldberg ss`2`1`1`0
Nalevanko 2b`2`0`0`0
Donahue cf`2`1`2`0
Volchoff eh`1`0`0`0
McIntyre c`1`1`0`0
Conaboy eh`2`0`1`1
Totals`22`4`4`2
Back Mtn. National`111`000 — 3
Abington`120`10x — 4
HR — Nulton, Federici.
Back Mtn. National`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Federici`1.0`0`1`0`1`1
Samanas (L)`2.2`3`3`1`0`6
DeFalco`0.0`1`0`0`2`0
Lapidus`1.1`0`0`0`0`0
Abington`IP`H`R`ER`BB`SO
Kwiatkowski`2`2`2`2`1`3
Jordan (W)`4`1`1`1`0`1
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