Along the first-base side of Simmons Field at Egypt Memorial Park, there’s a bench dedicated in honor of Ron “Punkin” Miller.
He was the founder of the franchise that has played Blue Mountain League baseball at the Whitehall Township park since the late 1970s.
If there was one thing Miller preached more than anything else, it was the need to be committed and dedicated to his team. If you signed up to play for his squad, you were expected to be at each game, or at least as many as possible, with few excuses accepted.
Miller would be proud of the 2024 version of the franchise he built.
Even though it’s an amateur league and no one is getting paid, the Orioles show up in large numbers. And that depth is one of the reasons they are two-time defending champs and now three wins away from a third consecutive title.
Egypt had an 11-game postseason win streak snapped Saturday by the Northern Yankees, but bounced back with a 7-5 win Sunday to potentially start a new streak.
The Game 4 victory gave the O’s (21-9-1) a berth in the league finals, which will be against the Limeport Bulls or the Elite Sports Academy Avengers. They were set to play Sunday night at Limeport, with the Bulls holding a two games-to-none lead.
The finals could start Tuesday, and the Orioles would have the homefield advantage as the No. 1 seed.
“Our depth really separates us,” said Ian Csencsits, who sparked the O’s nine-hit attack by going 3-for-4 with two doubles and a triple and three runs scored.
“You look at our bench and we have 20 to 25 guys over here that could probably service two whole teams,” Csencsits said. “A lot of other teams are a little bit lighter than us in terms of depth. It’s a credit to our guys because they show up and they know what we’re about. We want to win a championship. Not every guy gets to play in every single game, and it’s a credit to our guys that they do show up. We have guys who buy in and know their roles. They are all important and they all add up to a championship-caliber team in the end.”
About the only player on the O’s roster who played for Miller is Justin Jachowicz, who became the league’s all-time wins leader with 81 victories this season. Jachowicz, a Panther Valley High graduate and a Summit Hill native, joined the team in 2006. Miller died in 2013 at the age of 71.
Jachowicz worked 4 1/3 innings and scattered eight hits, and did his best to hold down a Yankees lineup that came to life with 11 runs Saturday.
“Every time we come here, we say a little prayer for Punkin over at his bench and I think he’s watching every game here at Egypt for sure,” Jachowicz said. “I still love coming here and playing here. My kids always play over at the park. We’ve got a great group of guys here and we have a lot of fun. The Yankees are a good hitting team and found a lot of holes today. I just hung in there and tried to give us a chance to win.”
After Jachowicz departed, Sawyer Kemp, the Game 2 winner, worked out of a fifth-inning jam and then more trouble in the sixth. The Yankees had the bases loaded with two outs in the sixth after cutting a 6-1 deficit to 6-5, but Kemp worked out of it with a grounder to short for a force out.
Parkland grad Evan McAndrew came on and got a 1-2-3 seventh, with two strikeouts.
“We had our vet on the hill [Jachowicz] who has been here a million times before, and then Sawyer came in after throwing 88 pitches on Thursday and got out of a huge jam and then Evan came in and closed it out,” Orioles manager AJ Brosious said. “He never closed for us. He’s a starter. But he pitched at Mansfield and he knows what he has to do.”
Other Orioles offensive standouts included Trey Hinkle, who had two hits, including a triple, and knocked in two runs. Brosious collected a pair of RBIs and Dom Bayo doubled in a run and scored a run.
The Yankees, who lost for the third year in a row in the semifinals after winning the 2021 BML title, outhit the Orioles 10-9 but were left one big hit short.
“Player availability is huge and I find that out more and more each year I do this,” Yankees manager Brian Polaha said. “We lost a lot of veteran guys from last year’s team and this year we had a lot of new guys. We just had 10 guys here today when you’d like to have at least 12 or 13. Some guys went on vacation, some guys had to work. But even as shorthanded as we were and with limited pitching, we just had our chances here today.”
Polaha, whose team finished 20-13, tipped his cap to the Orioles, saying: “It’s hard to get guys to drive a long distance to get here if they’re not definitely going to play. That’s the way it is in 2024, but that speaks to the kind of culture they have going on, right, where guys want to be here even though they may not play. They definitely have a good thing going.”
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