CLYMER — This was Cole Keesler’s moment.
The Portville baseball team, amid a solid first season under Joe Pleakis, had lost its Senior Night contest a week earlier, dropping the Panthers to the No. 6 seed and forcing them into a road playoff opener.
And then in that matchup, 90 minutes away at Clymer High School, the Panthers watched as a 3-0 lead in the third inning slowly dissolved into a tie game (3-3) heading into seventh.
In that moment, under those circumstances, the Panthers could have potentially folded.
But Keesler, and Brady German soon after, wouldn’t let them.
With a full count and two outs in the seventh, Keesler ripped a shot down the first base line, which was booted by the defense. And though it went into the book as an error, it allowed Mekhi Muhyee to score the go-ahead run and eventually give Portville a 4-3 upset triumph over No. 3 Clymer/Sherman/Panama in a Section 6 Class C quarterfinal on Tuesday.
“It was a huge moment for him,” first-year coach Joe Pleakis said of Keesler. “I don’t know if I’d go so far to say that he’s struggled with the bat this year; it’s not where he would want it. But he gets up (in that scenario) and drives in the game-winning run.
“I don’t know how to explain it, he just willed that ball into play, got safe at first and drove in that run for us.”
But that accounted for only half of the heroics the Panthers received in the final frame.
In the bottom half, the Wolfpack had second and third with one out, but German “shut it down from there,” retiring the next two batters to preserve the win. That was part of an admirable complete-game outing from German, who allowed three runs (two earned) on seven hits while striking out four and walking four.
Like Keesler, German is one of Portville’s few returning seniors who didn’t want to see their season come to an end.
“He’s been huge for us,” Pleakis said of German. “We gave him the nod today, and he was just in command. We got into a couple places where we got jammed up and we got out of it.
“We got into trouble in the bottom of the seventh, and it was kind of the same thing Brady as Cole. I don’t know how to explain it, but he’s not going home, he’s getting that last out. He strikes the guy out and ends the game there.”
Of Keesler’s clutch at-bat in the top half, Pleakis added: “No one deserves it more than him. The leadership, the time, the work he’s put in. (It’s) one of those great baseball stories for him to be there, in that position, to drive that run in.”
Dylan Chudy went 2-for-4 (his hit in the seventh became Muhyee’s winning run), Izayah Edmund had a hit and RBI and Aidan DeFazio and Braeden Carter both singled for the Panthers (11-7), who will meet No. 2 Gowanda, a familiar playoff foe, in Thursday’s semifinals.
Portville managed five hits off CSP’s Bryce Hinsdale, who also fanned four, walked four and surrendered two earned runs (4 total) in a complete-game effort. But German and the Panthers offset that modest output by stranding nine CSP baserunners and committing just one error to the Wolfpack’s five.
“We put the ball in play, we hit it hard and we made them make plays,” Pleakis said. “We put it in play and capitalized on our opportunities.”
In the end, the Panthers remained poised after CSP tallied runs in the third, fifth and sixth innings to tie it. Now, they’ll play in the sectional semifinals for the fifth-consecutive season.
“I was pleased with how resilient that bunch of guys was today,” Pleakis said. “We just had that feeling of nobody’s ready to go home. They battled all seven innings.”
