The challenge for Blake Morgan is to get his players up early for a trip to Philadelphia and have them ready to play a pair of games before noon Monday.
The challenge for Ted Plessl is to find a way to spark a potentially explosive offense and get the bats booming at Citizens Bank Park.
Morgan is the Whitehall High softball coach in charge of the Lehigh Valley entry in the Softball Carpenter Cup. The local ladies play three games Monday, the opening day of the tournament, at FDR Park in south Philly. Two of those games will be before noon.
Meanwhile, about a mile east on Pattison Avenue, the Lehigh Valley’s Carpenter Cup baseball team, coached by former Palmerton coach Plessl, will play a 1 p.m. game at Citizens Bank Park against Mercer County, New Jersey.
If Lehigh Valley wins it would return to the home of the Phillies for the title game at 10 a.m. Thursday.
Both Morgan and Plessl feel they have talented teams that well represent the area.
The baseball team has shown its depth through two wins, beating the Philadelphia Catholic League 6-0 and Olympic Colonial 5-4. Pitching and defense have been the keys.
Mercer County has won its two games in different fashion, pounding the ball in a 9-6 win over defending champion Burlington County and a 14-1 rout of Berks County.
“We would have liked to score more runs, but I know we have good hitters,” Plessl said. “I wouldn’t want to be the team that faces us when we finally figure it all out and hit like we can. Sometimes you have to have patience.”
Plessl said that the Lehigh Valley team always has two goals: The first is to get to the semifinals, which means at least one game at Citizens Bank Park; the second is to win the tournament, which Lehigh Valley has done three times, most recently in 2011.
Goal No. 1 has been accomplished and now it’s on to the second one.
“The big goal is to win it all, but the other one is for these kids to have an opportunity to play in a major league park,” Plessl said. “It’s amazing to me when some kids don’t even take that opportunity, but for many, if not most of them, this is going to be the highlight of their careers. Not many kids get the opportunity to play in a major league stadium. It’s not easy to do. It’s a golden opportunity for them.”
Plessl remembers how excited the local kids and their parents were in 2019 when Lehigh Valley played two games at Citizens Bank Park, the last one in a hard-fought championship game against Burlington County, New Jersey. Burlington won 4-2, but both the game and experience were memorable.
“Mercer County has been hitting the ball, but we don’t feel we’re too far away from them because we’ve faced some great pitching in our two games,” Plessl said. “I don’t know what it is, but we always seem to be grouped against teams with pitching galore. In 2019, we faced a kid who is now in the minor leagues with Tampa Bay and a kid we faced on Friday is ranked in the top 20 of prospects likely to be drafted.”
Plessl said that while the defense had four errors Friday against Olympic Colonial, three came on pickoff attempts.
“We also turned four double plays and we had two strike-them-out, throw-them-out double plays turned by [Palmerton’s Brock Bollinger] and another turned at shortstop by [Easton’s Justin Ramirez], so we’re playing good baseball,” Plessl said.
The pitching staff has given up just 14 hits and three earned runs in two games and recorded 21 strikeouts to just six walks.
While Lehigh Valley has a .230 team batting average, the team is getting great production from Parkland’s Bo Barthol and Southern Lehigh’s Matt Tankred, who have combined for six hits, four RBIs and three runs scored.
Bethlehem Catholic’s Chaise Albus, Northwestern Lehigh’s Dylan Witkowski and Easton’s Max Squarcia all have a pair of hits.
While Lehigh Valley’s baseball team is hoping to get to Thursday, the softball team is hoping to win enough Monday to earn a return trip Wednesday, when the top eight teams return in the 16-team tournament, which unlike baseball, has a round-robin format that turns into a single-elimination from the quarterfinals on.
“It’s going to be an early trip, but the girls are excited to play and show what they can do,” Morgan said. “We have a good mix of girls who are just getting to know each other. We had a practice planned last week but then it rained and we didn’t get to get a full workout in because of the rain.”
Lehigh Valley has three players from Eastern Pennsylvania Conference champion Freedom, three from District 11 6A champ Northampton, and one from Colonial League champ Northwestern Lehigh.
Morgan has three girls from his Whitehall team on the Lehigh Valley roster.
Lehigh Valley will open against Burlington County at 8 a.m. and play Inter-AC/Bicentennial at 10 a.m. and Olympic Colonial at 2 p.m.
Lehigh Valley has two Carpenter Cup softball championships, but none since 2008.
It’s about the experience as much as it is about the scoreboard.
“We’ve had girls who have made lasting friendships just from playing together on this team,” Morgan said. “We’ve had girls who didn’t even get a lot of playing time for their high school teams, who got a chance to show what they can do on this team. They could be doing a lot of other things at this time of year, but they are giving up their own time to give back to their softball community and they’re proud to represent the Lehigh Valley.”
Keith Groller can be reached at 610-820-6740 or at kgroller@mcall.com.
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