LIMEPORT - Pitching.

It’s not the most exciting thing about the game of baseball, but in tournament play, good pitching trumps all.

On Friday night in the Connie Mack State Tournament, Franklin Township found that out the hard way as Pennridge pitcher Will Slamm pitched a gem to help carry his team to a 4-1 victory.

Offense was at a premium as Slamm looked focused from the onset, setting the tone by striking out the first three batters he faced. Slamm used a nice variation of speed on the outside corner and a diving breaking ball to keep the Franklin Township batters off balance throughout the game.

“I felt pretty good on the mound and in the first couple innings I was able to get away with not even using my curve ball, but then I threw a few and saw I had really good control of it,” said Slamm. “I really wanted to get the outside fastball going right away and when I got it working, I think it really kept them off balance.”

With a pitching performance the caliber of Slamm’s, Pennridge didn’t need to come up with too many runs. It was able to do enough offensively by getting some timely hits when the opportunities presented themselves.

Pennridge put together a nice offensive inning in the bottom of the second, scoring twice to take a 2-0 advantage. Hunter Burdick and Cooper Brannon started the inning with back-to-back singles. Anthony Benamati then reached on an error and Patrick Mill came through with the big hit when his RBI single and an error on Franklin Township produced two runs.

“I thought coming in Will was going to be pretty good out there. He asked to pitch today and whenever he asks to pitch he’s usually really focused and on his game,” said Pennridge head coach Steve Navitsky. “Whenever we had some guys on base and in scoring position, we were able to get the timely hit. We’re pretty good one through nine and we’re a team that likes to get up there and attack. These kids aren’t looking for walks; they’re trying to drive the ball.”

Pennridge added two more runs in the bottom of the third to really put the pressure on Franklin Township to answer. A double from Justin Petrik scored Slamm, who was able to leadoff the inning with a walk and Petrik later scored on an error to make it a four-run lead for Pennridge.

“Their pitcher did a really good job of pounding the strike zone throughout the whole night and they got some big hits when they needed to,” said Franklin Township head coach Ron Steigerwalt. “He stayed low in the zone, which is where you want to be and we just couldn’t catch up to him. He’s probably the best pitcher we’ve seen all year. I thought we pitched pretty well too, but we just weren’t able to get enough guys on base to make anything happen.”

Franklin was able to get a run across in the top of the fourth after Michael Yeakel reached base on a single and scored on an error, but were only able to muster one baserunner the rest of the way.

SLAMM EFFECT ... Slamm went 5 2/3 innings, striking out 14 while allowing just one unearned run.

NEXT UP ... Franklin now enters the loser’s bracket and will face the South Parkland-Nor Gwyn loser at 12 noon on Sunday at Limeport.

Franklin Twp. 000 100 0 - 1 2 4

Pennridge 022 000 X - 4 6 1

Rarick, Gable (5) and Yeakel; Slamm, Navitsky (6) and Santora. W - Slamm. L - Rarick.