Mounts gaining steam

Tuesday night’s Lancaster- Lebanon League Section Two baseball game between Ephrata and Elizabethtown was far from ordinary. But as oddities played out over the course of seven innings at War Memorial Field, Ephrata kept its focus — just keep grinding out at-bats.

The Mounts did just that, plating a run in each of the first three innings before breaking out in the sixth for a 6-1 victory over visiting Elizabethtown.

The win marks the sixth straight victory for Ephrata (4-2 Section Two, 7-2 overall), which has rebounded from a 1-2 start to the season to move into second place in the section.

“A lot of this has to do with confidence,” Ephrata coach Adrian Shelley said. “I think the first couple of games, we just weren’t sure we could go out there and do that, but now we’ve done it enough that we seem to have embraced just the blue-collar mentality of working hard. We weren’t sure — you get a new group (of players) and even though the blueprint has been solid here, you just never know, especially when you start 1-2.”

After winning the District Three Class 5A championship last season, Ephrata lost a majority of its starting lineup to graduation. The new Mounts did a pretty good job Tuesday night.

Ephrata scored on a wild pitch in the first before turning a rundown in its favor in the second. With Ryan Jantzen caught between first and second, Justin Brubaker took off for home, just sliding in under the tag to make it a 2-0 game.

Zac McGillan picked up the Mounts’ second hit of the night in the third inning, smacking a 2-0 pitch into deep center field for a triple. Two batters later, Jackson Conover sent the first pitch he saw into right to bring in pinch runner Aaron Hershberger.

Elizabethtown (2-4, 3-4) started the game strong with Kyle Welch’s leadoff single to left, but Ephrata’s Owen Gockley kept the Bears offbalance from there.

The lefty retired eight straight batters before Nick Kreider singled to lead off the fourth and struck out seven in the complete game, including consecutive strikeouts to get out of the fourth without letting up a run.

Elizabethtown found a way to bring in a run in the top of the fifth. Hunter Murry and Jake Black both singled and advanced to second and third on Michael Baker’s sacrifice bunt before Javan Thomas’ RBI single into right cut the Bears’ deficit to just two runs.

Ephrata threatened in the bottom half of the inning, loading the bases with two out, but Kreider forced a grounder to third to get out of the jam.

Instead, the Mounts had to wait until the sixth to score again. An error, a walk and a single loaded the bases with one out for Ricky Bromirski. The senior singled to bring in the run from third before Mc-Gillan followed with a fielder’s choice to second that saw two runs cross home plate.