Parkland High School Baseball

Parkland School District has approved their return to play guidelines which are attached below for your review. As of now the only sports returning to any activity are Fall sports. Winter and Spring sports are being asked to wait to do any activities until at least late July. Coaches have been asked to remind players that use of school fields is still prohibited.

It is our hope that we will still be able to hold our normal off-season activities. That would include open field Wednesdays in September and early October. It would also include some sort of Lifting/Conditioning workouts starting in October. And then our Intramural sessions starting in January. Of course all of this is at the mercy of the rules of the State and School District which will be impacted by the progress that we all make against this virus.

The regulations we operate under can and most likely will change on a weekly basis. We will provide updates to this page as we are made aware of them. It is also important to state that Parkland School District does not condone student participation in any activities that are not part of the Parkland School District’s Return to Sport Health and Safety Plan.

Please stay safe!

The Parkland Baseball Coaching Staff

Northampton came into the key divisional game against Parkland riding a 12 game win streak and looking to pull within one game of theTrojans in the Skyline Division.  It wasa battle that ended with a Matt Ervolina walk off single that scored Jeremy Piatkiewicz from second base as he ran through a late stop sign at third base.  When the dust at home plate settled, Piatkiewicz slapped home to put the finishing touches on a 5-4 Trojan win.

Adam Smith was the starting pitcher for the Trojans and went the first 5.1 innings allowing four runs on six hits while striking out five.  Koby Staivecki relieved to record the final four outs for the Trojans and get the win while recording two strikeouts.

Northampton took the lead in the first inning with three hits that lead to two runs and a 2-0 lead. Parkland tied it up in the bottom of the second inning when Jack Giovenco singled with runners on second and third. 

Parkland took a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the third when Piatkiewicz and Blake Barthol singled.  Piatkiewicz scored on an Ervolina groundout and Barthol scored on a wild pitch.  Northampton tied it up in the top of the fourth with three hits, leading to two runs.

The game stayed tied at four until the bottom of the seventh when Piatkiewicz walked and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt from Barthol and eventually scored on the walk off single by Ervolina.  Piatkiewicz and Giovenco each had two hits for the Trojans who managed only six hits on the day against the tough Northampton pitching.

The Trojan JV Squad visited Northampton for a weekend afternoon game on this very windy day.  The 20 mph winds made for a chilly 55 degree game time temperature.   However, the wind weather didn’t impact theTrojans in the first few innings.   Jake Donmoyer led off the game with a line drive single to right field and then after a miscue by the Northampton 3b and some clever base running, Parkland had 2nd and 3rd with 1 out and Luke Meehan at bat.  Luke did his job by knocking in a run on a ground out to first.   From there, the smart base running by Bryce Ratliff was able to score another run.  Owen Lehr got the start and had a very efficient 6 pitch….1…2…3 inningin the bottom of the first.    After no score in the 2nd, Parkland was able to take advantage of a Konkrete Kids error and some nice base running to get Jake Donmoyer to 3rd base.   At that point, Kevin Santos hit a fly ball to center field for a sacrifice rbi.    3 to 0 going into the bottom of the 3rd and Parkland was feeling good.   However, with 2 out and 2 on for Northampton the #4 batter for Northampton took advantage of the windy conditions and hit what seemed was a routine fly to right field.  However, the winds took it over the fence for a home run to tie the game.   Parkland got 2 in the 4th to take another lead but then Northampton started getting the ball in play in the bottom of the 4th.   With a couple hits and some tough to fielding plays on this windy day, Northampton ended up takingthe lead 9 to 5 after 4.

At this point, there was some back and forth and it seemed like whichever team took advantage of hitting the ball high in the air in the windy conditions was going to win.   Evan Brandt pitched 2 innings and pitched well for the Trojans and had a chance for the win when the Trojans battled for a comeback in the 7th inning with Andrew Keller (3 hits in 4 at bats) getting a clutch 2 out double to knockin 2 to get the game close.   Ty Tremba hit a nice single to left field and if Joe Algard’s ball was hit a couple innings prior, who knows where the ball would have ended up, but the lessening winds slowed the ball right as the right field was about to run back to thefence.    The end result was Northamptonwon 12 to 10.   Lehr and Brandt threw well for Parkland even though the number of runs scored for the “Kids” was deceiving.    On offense, Taiki Horiguchi hit a nice double down the right field line late in the game and Aaron Atiyeh hit a ground ball hard to center field which resulted in some key runs in the middle of the game.   The Trojan 9 have 5 games left in a little over a week, so they will strive to get over .500 with some solid play in the final week.

In a mid-season must win game, the JV Trojans did what they had to do to pick up the victory against the Huskies from Dieruff.   Taiki Horiguchi, who has precision like accuracy pitching for the red and silver, pitched 5 nice innings only giving up 2 hits and 1 run.   He threw strikes and the defense made the plays.   There were several defensive stars for the Trojans with Evan Brandt looking smooth at 3b in making all the plays.   Right Fielder Jesse Ruisch made a nice grab in the 3rd inning to end any chance of a rally for Dieruff.   Only 2 well executed first and third steals by the visitors was all that could be accomplished offensively against Parkland.   On offense, even with 7 runs, most of the base runners came via the walk.    Some bases loaded walks plus some key hits including a long double by Luke Meehan and another one by Jake Donmoyer helped the home team.   A Horiguchi single and an Ian Grobler line drive to right were the only other hits for Parkland.   With Horiguchi throwing strikes and then Ian Grobler coming in for the final 2 frames, the Trojans were able to get back on the winning track with a 7 to 2 win over Dieruff.  

The Trojans hit many good balls to the outfield but the“force” was definitely with Dieruff as their centerfielder named Jedi caught 6 of the balls hit to him.   In fact, with those 6 balls plus 3 outs to left field, 9 total outs were made by those 2 positions.   Of those 9, 5 were very well played balls by the outfielders that potentially saved some hits.   In the end, Parkland won and is now getting ready for the home stretch as they play 6 games in their final 12 days.    The JV squad is starting to gain confidence and is feeling some positivity in the home stretch this season.

The Trojans went to Easton for a conference battle of two of the top teams in the East Penn Conference.  Parkland was able to jump out to a 4-0 going into the sixth inning.  The first run came in the second inning when GeorgeJenkins drove in Joseph Webber on a ground ball fielders choice.  The Trojans tallied another run in the third inning when Matthew Ervolina doubled, driving in Jeremy Piatkiewicz, who reached on a single.  In the sixth, theTrojans put up two runs with singles by Jack Giovenco, George Jenkins, Alex Oliver and Piatkiewicz.

Starting pitcher Adam Smith cruised through the first five innings against Easton allowing a first inning hit and then didn’t allow another hit until the fifth inning, while striking out a total of seven Easton batters and fanning six in a row at one point during the game.  Easton wouldn’t go down without a fight and strung together three hits in the sixth inning to pull within a run of the Trojans.

Koby Staivecki entered to close it out in the seventh and did his job to earn the save by striking out the first batter of the inning.  The next three Easton batters reached base on two singles and a walk, bringing up the highly regarded Easton shortstop who hit a hard ground ball to first baseman Adam Smith.   Smith threw to shortstop Ervolina and returned to the first base bag to get the return throw for an exciting game ending double play.

Ervolina finished with two hits, including the RBI double.  Piatkiewicz finished with two singles and a run scored.  Giovenco tallied three hits,including a triple and scored one run.