“Some people call them ‘atom balls,’ but these were nuclear balls because they were hit so hard,” said Lehigh Valley Carpenter Coach Ted Plessl about how well his team was hitting in Tuesday’s opening game against perennially tough Burlington County. Unfortunately, exit velocity, no matter how popular among some in baseball, sometimes fails to tell the story. As hard as they were hit, most of the lasers landed in leather rather than on grass and Lehigh County fell to Burlington 6-4 in the first round of the 2022 Carpenter Cup tournament at FDR Park in Philadelphia.

The loss was the earliest exit for a Lehigh Valley team in recent memory as Plessl’s team has made trips to at least the quarterfinals and beyond an annual ritual. The team has three tournament championships to their credit and was facing one of the toughest teams historically in Burlington County, which is now 45-31 overall with four championships. Lehigh Valley’s overall record fell to 39-26 after reaching the semifinals last year.

Lehigh County jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the third inning, but Burlington County came right back with single runs in the bottom of the third and fourth to tie the game. Not to be outdone, Lehigh Valley put up another two runs in the top of the fifth, but Burlington stretched their consecutive inning scoring streak to four with single runs in the bottom of the fifth and sixth innings to again knot the game, this time at 4-4.

Emmaus’ Luke Deschenes came on to pitch the bottom of the eighth and breezed through the first two hitters before giving up three straight singles that made it 5-4. A wild pitch brought in another run to give Burlington a 6-4 advantage, but Lehigh Valley was far from done.

Northampton High School’s Matt Merced worked a walk to open the ninth and a Burlington County error brought the go-ahead run to the plate with no outs in the final inning with three big bats - Chaise Albus (Bethlehem Catholic), Blake Barthol (Parkland) and Matt Tankred (Southern Lehigh) - lined up to take their turn against Burlington’s Dylan Terwilliger.

The trio launched three of Plessl’s ‘nuclear balls’ but all of them were within reach of Burlington outfielders who made the catches to end the threat and advance Burlington County.

“We did everything right and played a good game, but we just couldn’t get balls into open spaces,” said Plessl. “They might not have hit balls quite as hard, but they were able to get them into the right spots. They are a very good team, and it was a battle the entire way and they just got us late and we couldn’t get back at them.”

Six different players had hits for Lehigh Valley and Logan Castellano of Notre Dame Green Pond led the team with two RBI in the game. Barthol and Emmaus’ Tyler LePage also drove in runs in the game. Gavin Sopko (Pocono Mountain East) was one of five pitchers used in the game and the only one not to allow a run. Sopko threw two shutout innings, giving up a hit and a walk while striking out three batters.

Jake Smale (Pleasant Valley) went 1-for-2 in the game, while Northwestern Lehigh’s Dylan Witkowski was hitless in two at-bats. James Lordi (Jim Thorpe) pitched 2 1/3 innings, allowing one run.

HONEY, I’M HOME... Plessl and general manager Joe Pirro can enjoy some down time before they go back to work on putting together next year’s team. In some ways, Plessl has already started as he has his eye on some young high school talent that he believes may be ready to join the team for the 2023 tournament. While others spend Black Friday shopping, Plessl marks the day as the beginning of his work on the next year’s team.

THREE OUT OF FOUR AIN’T BAD... Blake Barthol would have become just the second player to play all four seasons of Carpenter Cup baseball for Lehigh Valley if not for COVID wiping out the 2020 tournament, which was Barthol’s sophomore year. “I’m already watching his brother (Bo Barthol) for next year’s team,” said Plessl. Bo Barthol was on the Parkland team this season but went down with a knee injury late in the year and was unable to play on this year’s team.