The Methacton baseball team is preparing for what will hopefully be a long postseason run. Before they move on to districts and hopefully states, they have to conquer the Pioneer Athletic Conference (PAC). So far this season, they have beaten every team but one (that they have played) in the PAC this season. With three PAC losses, they avenged in their second games at Boyertown and vs Owen J Roberts. The Warrior swill not get a chance to avenge their loss to Upper Merion as the Vikings did not make the post season.
Coming into this season, one of the main goals of the team was to knock off Phoenixville to make up for their PAC championship loss from last season. They had to wait longer than expected, as the original date of the game was rained out, but when they did play the Phantoms, they knocked them off with a 3-2 win.
One of the main questions coming into this season was, “how will the team replace their seniors?” Not only were there seven seniors, but they lost their number one pitcher, Kross Howarth, and their three most reliant relievers, Ty Lohsen, Matt Christen, and his brother, Mike Christen.
Coach Speiwak, following their final regular season game against Upper Perkiomen, mentioned that he was very happy with the pitching this year, complimenting the top two starters, Evan Jones and Will Christian, as well as Austin Frank, James DeHaven and Tommy Kratz.
To look at the PAC playoff field, most teams, like Methacton last season, pitch their best pitcher in the semi-finals. That is certainly a tough decision for coaches. Here is why. When the Warriors traveled to Owen J. Roberts, they lost 2-1, but when OJR visited MHS, their best pitcher was not on the mound. Methacton proceeded to run-rule the best team in the district, 10-0 through five innings.
(William Clark)
For Phoenixville to get into the PAC final four, they needed to defeat Spring-Ford on Wednesday evening, and they did. They did put out their top pitcher for that game, making it a question whether he will be ready to go for next Monday. That is now the second time that Phoenxivlle has knocked Spring-Ford out of PAC’s in the last two years.
Looking back on last season, there is an opportunity for Methacton to play the exact same two teams. They ended up run-ruling PJP in the semi-final with the neutral site being Ram stadium on the campus of Spring-Ford’s high school. Then a 7 p.m. start for a 13-inning seemingly never-ending final between Methacton and Phoenixville ended in a walkoff for the Phantoms. Phoenixville was the four seed, knocking off the one-seeded Spring-Ford Rams, on their own field, and then eventually winning the championship against three-seeded Methacton.
Seeding this year looks much the same as last year with the only difference being Owen J Roberts taking the one seed as they had the same record as Methacton, both teams losing two PAC Liberty games a piece. OJR won the tiebreaker.
The two seed is then automatically held by the worst of the PAC divisional champions, who is PJP for yet another season, and then the three and four seeds are given to the next best two teams in the entire PAC, who are Methacton and Phoenixville.
Taking a look back on senior night this season, Methacton took on Pottstown, winning 19-0 after 2.5 innings of play, scoring eight in the first and eleven in the second, the more outstanding accomplishment though was the 300th career win by Methacton’s head coach, Dr. Spiewak. After the game, his players asked him if he had remembered his main milestone wins and he said no to all of those questions. He thanked the school district and the administrators for giving him the opportunity to coach for a long time.
“… I just feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to coach these guys and all the guys before them,” he said.
There were 10 seniors honored, starting with manager Ethan Ketter who is unable to play this season due to injury, and continuing with Austin Frank, Ben Clark, Aiden Fitch, Anthony Daddazio, James DeHaven, Kasey Humes, Casey Behan, and Tripp Shytle. Certainly a fun evening, but a short one, which was much needed after all these long extra-inning games, for every parent, kid, and fan involved.
Finally, a note on some of the hardships of the season. Starting with the first home game of the season, taking on Lansdale Catholic, Methacton was down by one heading into the bottom of the seventh but they railed to win thanks to Tripp Shytles’ game-winning RBI. After that all three of their next games following their annual spring training trip to Florida over spring break were canceled due to a huge rain storm and they started back up at Norristown, knocking them off 12-0. A huge win over PJP led to a big Perk Valley game that ended in a 4-4 tie due to darkness. That game was eventually walked off in the bottom of the ninth by Methacton to win 5-4 at PV on April 22.
That Perk Valley game originally on the April 11 saw a lot of mistakes leading to the tie game through eight innings. Then a big win at Spring-Ford on April 15 led to what ended up being the toughest stretch of the season, starting with a 2-1 loss to OJR and then follow up losses to Upper Merion and Boyertown.
The team responded well to their early season drop off, ending their regular season 16-4.
