Plum baseball looks to build momentum after narrow victory over Penn-Trafford

By: Michael Love
Saturday, April 15, 2023 | 11:01 AM

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Last year, the Plum baseball team lost seven games.

Five of the seven were decided by two runs or less, including a two-run setback to Shaler in the first round of the WPIAL Class 5A playoffs.

The Mustangs also won four of their 12 games by one run.

Plum has continued that trend this year with a number of close contests.

The Mustangs split with Penn-Trafford last week, and both games were decided by a single run — a 4-3 victory by the Warriors and a 3-2 triumph by Plum the next day.

“Every game we’ve played has been close and competitive,” said Plum coach Carl Vollmer, who saw his team land at 4-6 overall and 2-2 in Section 1-5A with the Penn-Trafford split.

“We’ve played a really tough schedule with 6A Pine-Richland, Seneca Valley and North Allegheny; the three teams we played in Florida; and Armstrong and Penn-Trafford in section. I know they don’t have anything like a strength-of-schedule rating, but our strength of schedule to this point has been really strong. The difference in a lot of the games has been a pitch here or a hit there. Little things often have made the difference. The guys have really grown as a team from playing those games.

“We hadn’t found ourselves on the winning side enough, and we’re disappointed in that. But we had opportunities to win each of those games.”

Vollmer pointed to the North Allegheny game as an example of the razor-thin divide between winning and losing.

“We had North Allegheny down to its last strike three times, and we weren’t able to put them away and lost in extra innings,” Vollmer said of the 8-7 loss to the Tigers on April 3.

Plum kicked off its season at Baseball City in St. Petersburg, Fla., and it went 2-1 with wins over St. Petersburg, 14-6, and Huntsville, Ark., 4-1, after a 6-3 loss to Lutheran South, Mo., in the opener.

The Mustangs returned home and felt the sting of a 6-3 loss to Pine-Richland before a section split against Armstrong.

The River Hawks edged Plum, 6-5, in the second game of the series with a walk-off in the 10th inning, one day after Plum scored a 12-2 win on its home turf.

The Mustangs held a two-run lead through three innings before scoring 10 times over the fourth and fifth innings to close out the mercy-rule triumph.

Junior Jack Anderson had the big hit of the game with a grand slam. He finished with five RBIs in all.

Fellow junior Sean Franzi collected two hits, and junior Colin Watson knocked in a pair of runs.

It was more than enough for junior Erik Streussnig who picked up the win with three hits surrendered and six strikeouts against no walks in the five-inning compete game.

“That first game with Armstrong was closer than the score indicated,” Vollmer said.

“The second game could’ve gone either way. We let the lead slip away in the seventh. That one was tough to swallow, for sure.”

Vollmer said there was a feeling of both excitement and relief in an April 12 win over Penn-Trafford that snapped a four-game losing skid.

Plum led 2-0 after two before Penn-Trafford rallied to tie it in the fifth. The Mustangs got the game-winner in the bottom of the sixth.

Plum managed just four hits — one each from senior Caden Norcutt, sophomore Jake Dombkowski and seniors Logan Kemmerer and Frank Macioce — and got RBIs from Norcutt and Kemmerer.

Streussnig, who pitched five innings and struck out nine while allowing three hits and three walks, got the win. Watson then came on for a two-inning save.

“The Penn-Trafford series was back and forth, both games,” Vollmer said.

“The guys were finally rewarded for the work they had been putting in. That win has the potential to be season changing for us to the point where it created momentum. Our backs were against the wall, especially after losing that first game. We knew we were facing a really good arm (Dylan Grabowski) and a really good team. I was proud of the way we responded and came out and fought.”

Plum was slated to face Penn Hills in a section home-and-home series Monday and Tuesday.

Up next for the Mustangs is a section series this Monday and Tuesday against a Gateway team in the mix for a playoff spot.

Franklin Regional and Fox Chapel also loom large in the stretch run of section play.

“I feel we are a pretty good team,” Vollmer said. “Our record might not indicate that at the moment, but we continue to fight every day, and I know we can compete with anybody. We have to do one or more things each game that will allow us to be on the winning side of our remaining games.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

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