No margin for error as Plum baseball seeks 13th straight playoff berth

By: William Whalen
Friday, April 26, 2019 | 6:50 PM

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It has been an up-and-down season for the Plum baseball team.

First, there were back-to-back one-run losses to local rivals Fox Chapel and Kiski Area early in the season. A one-run win over one of the top teams in Class 5A, Franklin Regional. Another one-run loss to nonsection foe Shaler. A convincing 5-2 win over Class 6A No. 2-ranked Penn-Trafford.

Then there’s probably the most painful loss of all. Holding a one-run lead going into the bottom of the ninth inning, Connellsville’s Gage Gillott drills a grounder through the gap at second base to score the winning run and send the Mustangs home scratching their heads once again.

These are some strange times for a proud Plum baseball program. A program built on consistency, showing up and winning big games and closing out teams in close games is struggling to find the magic that has guided the team over the better part of two decades.

“We’re hard to figure out, let’s put it that way,” Plum coach Carl Vollmer said. “I take a lot of pride in our program, and I think our community takes a lot of pride in our program.

“We made the WPIAL quarterfinals or beyond the past five years. We’ve been consistently competitive for years. This year, we have struggled to meet demands of each game I guess.”

Plum (6-9, 2-4) finds itself in another unfamiliar position — tied for last place in Section 2-6A with Hempfield. The Mustangs trail fourth-place Norwin (8-3, 2-3) by a half-game with four section games remaining. The top four teams qualify for the postseason.

“We need to get better in executing,” senior pitcher Gino Marra (1-1) said. “We get runners in scoring position a lot, but we don’t seem to finish the job.”

And that’s been the story all season, inconstistency. The Mustangs’ bats were hot to start the season but cooled off. Now, it’s the pitching that has taken over as the team’s strength.

“If you’re not scoring runs, you feel like you have to be perfect on the mound,” Vollmer said. “There’s a pressure that builds with that. All phases of the game has to be competing at a high level so that none of the other phases are feeling too much pressure.”

Marra, a UNC Asheville commit, struck out 11 en route to pitching a no-hitter in the Mustangs’ 1-0 win over section rival Norwin in mid April.

The Mustangs were riding high after the Norwin victory but went out the next day and suffered a tough loss to Connellsville. The peaks have sharp ridges and the valleys have been deep this season.

“There were some games early in the year that has just taken a mental and emotional toll on our team,” Vollmer said.

One of the great things about Vollmer’s Mustangs is they acknowledge their shortcomings and own up to them. There is no quit, and the Plum players know that they need to be almost perfect down the stretch if they want to make it 13 straight playoff appearances.

“Our approach for the rest of the season is that we have to win every game,” said senior outfielder Evan Sante, a Washington & Jefferson commit.

While it’s not panic mode yet, the Mustangs aren’t taking the situation lightly and are nowhere near being a finished product. Plum controls its destiny but has zero room for error.

“Baseball is tough game, and you have to be mentally tough to succeed in” Vollmer said. “This season has been a tough journey and one of the toughest that we had in the program for sure.”

William Whalen is a freelance writer.

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