Skills, experience work to West Lawn's advantage in win over Gregg Post

by Don Stewart, Reading Eagle

Posted on July 15, 2006

It must be the postseason for West Lawn. With that baseball trifecta of pitching, fielding and timely hitting, the Owls are firing on all cylinders.

Most of West Lawn's players are battle-tested, thanks to last season's run to the Great Lakes Regionals, as well as Wilson High's consecutive league titles.

On the other hand, most of Gregg Post's players haven't had much playoff experience.

Despite getting the Owls at home, the Keys looked to be the less comfortable team Friday night in falling 10-3 in a Berks Legion League winners bracket semifinal at George Field.

The Keys (19-4), who face Muhlenberg today in a noon elimination game at Laureldale, struggled on the mound and in the field.

Lefty starter Americo O'Valle, who's been dominant all season, lasted just a third of an inning. By the time Andrew Lis took over, West Lawn had a 3-0 lead, thanks in part to a pair of walks.

Lis (62/3 innings) and Marvin Batista (two innings) did a decent job in relief, but poor fielding hurt their cause. Four of the seven runs charged to them were unearned, thanks to five errors.

The stellar fielding that has been a key for the Keys all season was there at times, though. West Lawn (19-10) grounded into four inning-ending double plays, the lack of which might have resulted in a mercy-rule stoppage.

“Certainly we're hitting the ball,” Owls coach Tony Matz III said. “You can't overlook that. On top of that, we lost opportunities to score a lot more because of the four double plays.

“But to hit into that many double plays, you've gotta be hitting the ball pretty hard, and we were.”

West Lawn, which moves on to tonight's winners bracket final against top-seeded Boyertown (7 p.m. at Muhlenberg), also got another dominating performance from No. 2 starter Dexter Jablonski.

The 2005 grad limited Gregg Post to three runs (two earned) on five hits and three hit batters. With Jablonski keeping the Keys in check and the offense scoring in six of nine innings, Gregg Post never got back to within three runs of the lead.

“I thought he threw very well,” Matz said of Jablonski. “He limited them to three single one-run innings. I thought he got into a nice little groove there.”

The Owls seem to be in a nice little groove, overall. After winning 14 of their last 15 league games, they've blown out their first two playoff opponents by a combined score of 21-7.

It's an ideal wave of momentum to be riding into tonight's showdown with the Bears, whom West Lawn handled 7-2 last week. It was the Owls' first win against Boyertown since 2000.

“I think we were coming into our own at the end of the (regular) season,” Jablonski said. “We've been winning a lot of games and playing really well.

“Just like last year, we're hoping to come into our own here at the end and make a good run through the playoffs.”

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