Sports
Marple Newtown Baseball Wins Season Opener 4-1
The Tigers pitch out a notable Radnor pitcher at their opening season game on March 28.
WAYNE–It took six innings to get to him. But 's baseball team was willing to be patient. The Tigers arrived at Radnor Monday afternoon a little charged up–facing their former coach, Mark Jordan, now a Radnor assistant, and beginning their defense of the Central League title against arguably the best pitcher in the area, Connor Walsh, who’s headed to Cincinnati in the fall on a baseball scholarship.
Six innings. That’s when the Tigers finally broke through, scoring two runs in the sixth inning and two in the seventh, which led to a 4-1 victory in the season opener for both teams.
Senior Garrett Wrambel earned the victory—his first career high school varsity win—thanks to two RBIs from Kurt Johnson in the seventh inning, and a game-winning run knocked in by Joe Kelly.
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“We had some extra motivation for this,” Johnson said. “We had Jordan on the other side, and coach [Chris] Gicking was over there. We had to win this game—we had to. With Walsh, we had to feel him out. We knew how he sets things up, so we sat back and waited for the curveball.”
But it didn’t start off that well. Radnor scored the first run of the season in the first inning when Walsh singled for the Red Raiders. Wrambel gave up three hits—two coming in the first inning and one in the fourth. Other than that, he was masterful. He didn’t issue a walk. He hit one batter, and struck out six over seven innings.
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“This was a big win for us,” Wrambel said. “The first inning was a little rough. I needed to settle. It was the first inning of the game. I know we’re a good hitting team. I wanted to keep them under two [runs]. That was the goal after the first inning.”
Offensively, the Tigers didn’t touch Walsh until the sixth inning. Walsh went 6 and 2/3 innings, striking out eight. He also gave up six walks.
“We just came in a little flat and we let one slip today,” Walsh said. “I made a mistake in the sixth inning. I didn’t come into that inning with the right mindset. It takes a while to get everything down. I’m still learning. This game was really big for us. They’re a good team. We can at least learn from this.”
Marple Newtown will play Penncrest next, while Radnor goes from playing the defending league champion to facing Strath Haven, the defending PIAA District 1 Class AAA champion.
“This was a perfect way to start the season,” Johnson said, “from beating our former coach to beating a very good pitcher in Walsh. You couldn’t have asked for a better start.”
