Mounts win first State playoff game

Peters Township came to Ephrata Monday the top-ranked team in the state, two runs away from undefeated.

Its leadoff hitter, Drew Ripepi, sent the first pitch of his team’s Class 5A state-tournament game with Ephrata into the football bleachers for a towering, and intimidating, 400-foot home run.

“Welcome to the state playoffs,’’ said Ephrata coach Adrian Shelley.

Any concerns, Mounts? “Yeah, honestly,’’ admitted catcher Coy Schwanger. “I saw their roster and their stats and stuff … little nervousness there.’’

By the third inning, the Indians had sent another bomb into the football bleachers and led 4-0.

The Mounts, having been seasoned by gut-punch losses for the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section Two title, the league playoff title and the District Three 5A title, are used to absorbing shots and staying in the fight.

In the bottom of the third, Schwanger sent his own two-run homer into the cheap seats and everything changed.

Ephrata kept on keeping on, and soon had a remarkable, dramatic 9-7 win, the first state-tournament win in school history, and a berth in Thursday’s state quarterfinals.

Home runs aren’t usually the Mounts’ thing, but Schwanger’s shot “provided a spark, strategically speaking, cutting a four-run lead in half with one swing,’’ said Shelley. “After that, OK, we can get two. We can get more than two.’’

They got way more than two – seven, in fact – in a wild and very Ephrataesque bottom of the fourth.

The Mounts strung together a bunch of doggedly tough at-bats, four singles, a huge triple by Aaron Her- shberger and then a cool baseball moment – a pop foulout near the Peters Township dugout, less than 60 feet from the plate, on which Tanner McCracken tagged up, flew home and dove under the tag at the plate.

“I took a look at the catcher and the first baseman but, more important, I took a peek at the pitcher,’’ said Shelley, who was coaching third. “I said, ‘You’re going.’ “We actually work on that. It might happen once every 10 years. That play kind of explains who we are.’’

Peters Township used three pitchers in that inning, but not ace Sam Miller, who did not appear on the mound. He had thrown 95 pitches straddling a rain delay in the District Seven championship game Wednesday.

“We could have put him out there,’’ said coach Rocky Plassio. “But we have other guys we believe in. Some-times you have to think about (what’s best for) the kid.’’

The Indians kept hitting – the teams combined for 24 hits – and scored three in the sixth to pull within 9-7.

Ephrata cut off a critical run at the plate for the second out of that inning on a relay from Hagen to Hershberger to Schwanger.

In the seventh, Shelley gave the ball to Ben Burkey, a change-up artist whose very off-speed, very elusive-looking stuff was just right for the moment. The Indians went down 1-2-3.

Thursday’s opponent, site and time to be determined, will be L-L brethren Donegal, which beat Southern Lehigh Monday. Ephrata (18-7) beat Donegal 11-1 in last week’s district semifinals.