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Don’t look now ... Post 295 wins again

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo charlie shoemaker⁄the gazette Gaithersburg Post 295’s Ezequiel Perez hugs teammate Mike Celenza (15) after the team’s 10-9 win over Gaithersburg Post 104 for a fourth straight county title Sunday.

Post 295 will now play Chaney Enterprises on Friday at 4 p.m. at McCurdy Field in Frederick in the first round of the Maryland State American Legion Tournament.

‘‘Everyone was ruling us out because they crushed at the beginning, but that was our goal just to peak right now and peak through states,” Post 295 center fielder Joe Weaver said. ‘‘Honestly, I was a little nervous about 104 but pretty confident because we beat them in a tough game last time and they’ve been on a downward slope and we’ve been on a rise ever since.”

Seasoned hurlers Brett Fox (5-2) and Mike Celenza (7-0) recorded wins of 4-3 and 7-2 against second-seeded Post 104 Tuesday and fourth-seeded Bethesda Post 105 (16-15) last Thursday, respectively, and then combined to upend a potent Post 104 squad in the championship contest.

‘‘We were just relying on pitching like we always do,” Fox said. ‘‘Guys stepped up. Me and Mike Celenza were able to go deep in a lot of games this year, and some younger guys stepped up a lot. Anytime you can beat those guys two times in a week, it feels pretty good. I can’t even believe it. It’s really special, especially with the guys we have on this team. We have a real young team this year. It’s looking good for them in the future.”

Offensively, third-seeded Post 295 (23-11) twice answered big innings by Post 104 (20-12) Sunday, including a four-run third inning that came after a grand slam by Wes Shifflet (2 for 4), which briefly gave Post 104 a 5-1 lead. In the bottom of the sixth, Post 295 struck for three runs to take the lead for good after Post 104 had taken a 9-7 advantage.

‘‘Every time they scored, we came back and scored in the bottom of the inning,” said Price, whose squad didn’t qualify for the playoffs until the second-to-last game of the regular season. ‘‘I think that was very important. They never had the lead for very long, maybe 10 minutes at time. We answered the grand slam ... which sort of got us back in it.”

The two squads, who have now met for the county title three years in a row, traded runs throughout a sloppy contest, which featured 10 combined errors and 17 total hits against ace pitchers Mike Allred (6-1), Fox and Celenza.

Post 295 struck first on a single by Seth Pearman in the first inning, but the lead was short-lived. Post 104, which was missing pitcher⁄shortstop Bobby Kim, who was on a church mission in Peru, answered on a throwing error by Fox, who threw away a sacrifice bunt by Stephen Delmar. Shifflet then gave Post 104 a four-run lead in the third inning with his grand slam that brought home Ian Marshall, Alex Bastow and Rick Phillips (2 for 3, 2 runs).

‘‘It was a middle in fastball and he left it up,” said Shifflet, who defeated Bethesda Post 105, 6-4, Saturday with a complete-game effort. ‘‘I just tried to be aggressive on the first pitch.”

Weaver (3 for 3, 3 runs) sparked a four-run rally in the bottom of the third inning with a solo home run to left field. Four batters later with the bases loaded, Matt Filderman sent a sacrifice fly to center field, followed by Matt O’Keefe’s two-run double to tie it, 5-5.

Post 295 took a 7-5 lead in the bottom of the fourth on two hits and two errors, including a missed pop-up by Allred that would have held the lead at 7-6. Post 104 came back with four combined runs in the fifth and sixth to regain the lead at 9-7.

In the fifth, Bastow walked and then scored on a double by Phillips, who was later thrown out in a run down when a suicide squeeze play with Dennis Schoonmaker failed.

Post 104 then added three more runs in the top of the sixth against Celenza, who started his relief appearance with a strikeout of Mitch Levine but was then touched for three straight hits, including doubles by Marshall and Bastow. Bastow stole third and scored on an errant throw to third on the play.

‘‘I had Ian [Marshall] 0-2 and threw a bad pitch ... and I think it just carried over to the next at-bat,” Celenza said. ‘‘I hung a curveball to Bastow and it just kept going, but they told me when I came in that we’d get it back and I wasn’t worried about it. It happens.”

Weaver started the bottom of the sixth with a double and then scored on a throwing error by Allred on a bunt by Kyle Judson. Pearman also bunted and reached on another Allred miscue. Judson eventually scored on a groundout by Celenza, and Pearman reached home on a low pitch that Phillips, behind the plate, couldn’t come up with for the 10-9 advantage.

‘‘We thought with Mike on the mound, we had a good chance of winning the first game,” Phillips said. ‘‘With less pitching, we were hoping to just duke it out, but we had to win the first one.”

Celenza worked a perfect seventh to seal the victory.

‘‘There was a point during the season where we weren’t playing well at all and we were just like, `Let’s do it. We can do it,’” Celenza said. ‘‘Our second game against [104 during the regular season], we played them tough. We thought we could take it home from there. We played a lot of teams tough and we beat Damascus twice. From the beginning, we thought we could do it, but I guess nobody else did.”