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Heading to the dish for his fifth plate appearance Monday evening at the South Philadelphia super site, 10th and Bigler streets, Dylan Edmonds-Carty had figured the attempt would end like its predecessors, all bases on balls.
Finally facing an inviting pitch, the senior first baseman crushed a triple to give the Edward Bok Technical High School Wildcats, 1901 S. Ninth St., a 13-12 walk-off win against the Samuel S. Fels High School Panthers in their secondary institution’s final home game.
“We just rallied at the plate,” the cleanup hitter and Germantown resident said of his East Passyunk Crossing squad’s overcoming a four-run final-inning deficit. “Batter by batter, we just came back and gained confidence over time.”
The School Reform Commission decided March 7 to back School District of Philadelphia Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.’s suggestion to shutter Edmonds-Carty’s 75-year-old institution and send students to South Philadelphia High School, 2101 S. Broad St., so coach Frank Natale’s charges took to their diamond hoping somehow to salvage an 0-9 campaign that had seen them score only 15 runs. Also entering winless, the guests desired to vanquish Bok’s positive vibes and grabbed a 1-0 lead via their first swings.
The Wildcats countered with two runs in the second, but sloppy fielding, somewhat erratic pitching from senior right-hander Lorenzo Taveras and an inside-the-park grand slam in the next inning put them behind 7-2.
“I don’t care about the score right now,” Natale, the 2012 Readers’ Choice top high school coach winner based on his football unit’s success, said. “You have a chance to do something special today, so relax and make contact.”
Three runs reduced the margin in the home third, but the teams waged a you-score-we-will-score-right-back battle that kept the Bok representatives sensing they might fall again.
“After so many losses, we started to think we wouldn’t get a win,” shortstop Larry Pelzer, who aided a three-run fourth inning after taking a fastball in the ribs, said.
The resident of the 2500 block of Wolf Street rushed for 1,458 yards during the fall and joined the baseball club for his senior season to realize his dream of becoming a two-sport contributor. As Fels recovered the lost runs and tacked on a few more, it looked as if Pelzer would have to settle for that durable distinction. Mindful that his elders would not have another occasion to don their home uniforms, sophomore second baseman David Destouet wanted them to go home hearty and not heartbroken.
“When we went up in the seventh, I knew if we got some guys on that we could do it,” the resident of the 2200 block of Morris Street said. “We had to get a win because nobody wanted to waste our best offensive day.”
Senior left fielder Shaquille Blackwell singled to start the final frame, with Destouet duplicating the feat. A flyout and a strikeout led Natale to pace along the third-base line, but Pelzer loaded the bases after another hit-by-pitch effort to give junior center fielder Naasir Granberry a chance to make up for a quartet of fruitless at-bats, including three strikeouts. Depositing a high fastball just beyond the infield, he plated Blackwell and Destouet and crossed after Pelzer following a single by Taveras, his third hit of the day.
The hurler, a Northeast Philly dweller, then swiped his third bag to put himself into scoring position. With no official at-bats to his name, Edmonds-Carty wanted to bring the Wildcats glory with one cut.
“I told him, ‘Dylan, if you get something to hit, hit it,’ and that is what he did,” Natale, of the 1600 block of South Juniper Street, said of the hero, who also caught five passes for last year’s Class AAA gridiron titlists.
Edmonds-Carty had essentially seen nothing appetizing the whole day and pounced on the decent offering to start Taveras on a rapid run to home. As he reached third, the slugger wore a look of shock and relief as his mates mobbed him.
“I would say it was my best hit of the season,” he said of his most memorable batting contribution to the hard-knock year.
Along with the 25 runs, the game featured 28 hits, 10 errors and 32 strikeouts, with Taveras, who pitched the entire contest, registering 18 whiffs.
“I didn’t know,” he said of the staggering amount. “… The first win was nice and we did it after hard work at practice.”
“He made his mistakes but he fixed them,” Natale added, “and it was a great experience for him.”
Used to victories on the gridiron, the coach admitted he felt relieved to place a game in the win column.
“It’s been a long season for us, and this team deserves it,” Natale said. “They deserve every second of it.”
In Tuesday’s season finale, the Wildcats fell 15-3 to Kensington.
Review Intern John Murrow contributed to this article.
Contact Staff Writer Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124. Comment at southphillyreview.com/sports/features.
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