Marple Newtown Battles Back To Win District Playoff Game

NEWTOWN SQUARE–It looked lost already and it just started. was staring down the barrel of a five-run deficit and it was just the second inning. Tigers’ coach Steve Smith had some trepidations that his team could bounce back, but Smith never doubted his team's resolve. He knew they would keep scratching and fighting. 

Smith’s confidence was rewarded in Marple Newtown’s 9-6 comeback victory on Wednesday over North Penn in the second round of the PIAA District 1 Class AAAA baseball playoffs.

Marple Newtown, now 18-3 overall, advances to the quarterfinal round, where the top-seeded South Tigers will host District 1 North No. 4 seed Council Rock North on Friday at 4 p.m.

Marple Newtown's Rob Gore was the winning pitcher in relief, with offensive help from senior shortstop Kurt Johnson, who went 2-for-4 and scored two runs, John Brogan’s fourth-inning triple that sparked the Tigers’ offense, and Dan Cahalane and Scott Todd, who also each went 2-for-4.

In all, Marple Newtown banged out 14 hits, and was aided by five North Penn errors. But those errors were caused by aggressive base-running by the Tigers—and a belief that despite giving up four runs in the first and two in the second to trail 6-1 early, they weren’t out of it.

“We just had to keep our heads up,” Gore said. “We worked hard to put ourselves in this position. We weren’t about to let it slide. Plus, we are a pretty crazy bunch. No one was about to stop trying. Brogan’s triple got us going. Once we got that second run, we began to sense something could turn around.”

In the fourth, Brogan, a hulking 6-foot-5 junior, blasted a shot that could have gone out of some Major League ballparks, pounding the ball 400 feet to dead centerfield. That scored a run and Brogan himself came in to score, putting the Tigers within striking range, at 6-3.

“We had to dig deep and find a way,” Brogan said. “We came together as a team and never had any doubts in our minds we would win this game.”

But Smith tempered that a little dose of reality … “Down 6-1 against a good team you have to have doubts...I had some doubts, but what I didn’t doubt was whether the kids would hang in there, there was never a doubt that they’d quit,” Smith said. “These kids have a lot of character. Brogan’s shot lit a fire and we went from there. I never lacked confidence we would score.”

The Tigers did. Marple Newtown exploded for a six-run in the sixth and took control of the game. Gore shut the door and the Tigers have lived to play another game on Friday.

“This game easily beats any baseball game I ever played in, to come back the way we did,” Johnson said. “We knew we had to chip away and we knew we could come back. I think the lesson we learned is we just can’t put ourselves in that spot again.”