UDC garners championship

ELIZABETHVILLE - Cody Zerby thrust his hands into the air and leaped off the mound as the final out was recorded.

Catcher Austin Rebuck ran out and jumped on top of him.

Third baseman Aaron Cleveland was next, followed by several more Upper Dauphin County players.

What usually results in a championship dogpile, however, never resulted. Zerby was just too big for his UDC teammates to bring down.

Zerby was big at both the plate and on the mound in the July 17th District 24 Little League 10-11-year-old championship game as Upper Dauphin County defeated Railway Park 9-2.

The burly first baseman went 2-for-3 with a double, a booming home run and three RBIs at the plate, then pitched three scoreless innings of relief, striking out seven and giving up just one hit.

"His home run, I don't know if they found it," Upper Dauphin County manager Matt Stoneroad said of Zerby. "He's one of those guys that stepped up this year, took a spot and wasn't on the team last year. He really came around as a ballplayer and a pitcher this year."

The victory gives Upper Dauphin County (6-0) its second straight District 24 10-11-year-old championship, and it's the second straight title for this group of UDC players, who won the 9-10 title a year ago.

Upper Dauphin County advances to Section 3 play, where it was scheduled to face District 15 champion Athens on July 22 at a District 13 site.

"They really feel like there's some unfinished business for them in sectionals," Stoneroad said. "Last year we ran into a very good Loyalsock team. Hopefully we go up there and we play baseball the way we know how."

Railway Park (5-1) opened the game with a run in the top of the first inning on Alex Everly's RBI double, but in what turned out to be a sign of things to come, the Pottsville stars stranded runners at second and third base.

UDC answered with four runs in the bottom of the first inning, capitalizing on two Railway Park errors. Zerby plated one run with a groundout, and Chase Snyder and Devin Joseph had RBI singles.

Railway Park tallied another run in the top of the second when Jon Day doubled and scored on Luke Joyce's single, but once again Railway stranded two runners on base. Railway Park finished the game with eight hits, but left 12 runners on base.

"We left a lot of guys on base," Railway Park manager Dave Wapinsky said. "These kids battled hard. They battled hard for five games. We didn't really have any easy games at all, and that's a good team (UDC). They flat out hit the ball.

"I'm proud of these guys, they fought hard, they played six innings and they had a successful tournament."

One reason for the large amount of Railway runners left on base was the pitching of Snyder.

The diminutive 10-year-old pitched three innings before reaching his 75-pitch limit, and gave up seven hits. Snyder, however, was able to get strikeouts when he needed them, recording the final out of the first three innings with a third strike.

"Chase is one those baseball 10-year-olds," Stoneroad said of Snyder, who fanned seven. "On my staff this year, he's been the No. 2 guy. He had some control issues, but when push came to shove, he threw real nice for us."

Upper Dauphin upped its lead to 6-2 with two runs in the third. Zerby doubled, Snyder singled and pinch-runner Tyler Wiest scored on a delayed double steal.

UDC then broke the game open with a three-run fourth, as Cleveland hit an RBI double and Zerby launched a monstrous home run to left.

Upper Dauphin finished with 10 hits, as Snyder went 3-for-3 and scored two runs. UDC also played error-free defense for the second straight game.

"Defensively, we were solid, and we hit the ball tonight," Stoneroad said. "We took advantage of everything we had, whether it was stealing bases or just little plays. Everything just fell our way tonight.

"Tonight we came through with big hits. We put quite a few runs on the board with two outs tonight."

Sign up for Text Alerts

Sign up for e-mail newsletters