WEST LAWN >> Boyertown will have to battle its way back through the losers’ bracket of the Berks County Legion League playoffs after a 9-3 second-round loss to West Lawn Thursday night at Owls Field at Ted Palka Park.
After a scheduled day off for all teams, the remainder of the tournament will move to Owls Field on Saturday. The Bears will play Daniel Boone – a 7-0 winner by forfeit over Shillington- at 1 p.m. West Lawn will face Oley-Topton Post 217, a 4-1 winner over Norchester, at 7 p.m. in the winners’ bracket final and Exeter and Twin Valley will play at 4 p.m.
Unlike Wednesday’s 2-0 opening-round win over Exeter when pitching and defense led the way, the Bears had troubles in the field and the mound against the Owls. Three errors led to five unearned runs and the Bear staff walked seven batters, three of them to begin innings.
“It was the opposite,” said Boyertown manager Rick Moatz. “Did we have three or four first-batter walks? Then we compounded it with the errors.”
West Lawn (28-3), which won the West Division with a 17-0 record, scored two in the first on a pair of walks to the first two batters, a bunt hit by Brady Gibble, an RBI single by Connor Uhrig and a grounder to short by Jaden Himmelreich.
East Division runner-up Boyertown (24-12) came right back with one in the second when Nolan Kline led off with a single and eventually scored on a wild pitch with two away.
Then the Bears took a brief lead – their only one of the night – with two in the third. Shayne Horrocks and Tate Yergey drew back-to-back walks with one out and Nick Di Ciacco grounded a hit to left to knock in the first run and Caleb Harrison lined a two-out single to left to plate the second for a 3-2 advantage.
But the Owls went right back on top with three in their half , the first on a single by Chase Zurawski – who got a second chance after a foul popup was dropped – and the other two on a double by Jaden Himmelreich.
West Lawn broke it open with four unearned runs in the fifth, all of them scoring after an infield error with two out. Zurawski and Uhrig each had two of West Lawn’s nine hits. The Bears managed just six hits by six different players.
In other games, Oley-Topton was a 4-1 winner at Norchester and Exeter eliminated Twin Valley, 5-4.
