Quarryville captures fourth consecutive Quad County Optimist League championship

They don’t hand out bottles of champagne at this level. Teams must find a different way to celebrate a championship.

Quarryville has been through this before. Four years in a row, the collection of players from Solanco, Lampeter-Strasburg and Penn Manor have ruled the Quad County Optimist League.

The men, and boys, in black and gold come prepared for the occasion. There was Fireball whisky for the veterans. Apple juice for the youngsters.

“We’ve won a few of these now,” second baseman Matt Rayha said. “Every one of them is just as special as the last.”

The game-winning RBI came off the bat of a social studies teacher. The winning pitcher didn’t throw an inning all spring. They’ve come from different circumstances and different towns to forge this dynasty.

Quarryville knocked off the Royals 3-2 in eight innings to sweep the best-of-5 championship series at Lancaster Mennonite Friday night. Rayha’s sacrifice fly in the eighth was the difference.

A couple of weeks from now, Rayha will walk into his classroom full of ninth and 10th graders for the first day of school. They’ll no doubt talk about their summer vacations.

Rayha could share a story or two about this game. He made a dazzling defensive play in the seventh that kept it tied 2-2.

Shortstop Ben Miller called that play “unbelievable.” Pitcher Hunter Sipel said it was “unreal.” Pick whichever “un” word springs to mind. It was both of those things.

Cam Eberly hit a soft popup toward second. Rayha was playing deep, trying to make sure a grounder didn’t get by him with the go-ahead run on third. He charged and somehow picked the spinning ball on the short hop. Tag Hess stretched to hold the bag at first.

“That was the game,” Miller said. “It’s not surprising to see him make plays like that, especially in big situations.”

Rayha, an assistant coach at Hempfield, has played for Quarryville every summer since he was 19. He’s 33. He savors these nights under the lights because he knows they won’t last forever.

Sipel graduated from Penn Manor last year. He could’ve been in Mr. Rayha’s class three years ago. This is the second summer the two have been teammates.

“When I saw him in the lineup, I was like, ‘Wow, he’s still playing,’” Sipel said. “Even at his age, and I’m not knocking his age, he can put together really good at-bats and play very well defensively. It’s cool to watch.”

Quarryville’s ace redshirted his freshman year at Kent State. He came into the summer itching for any kind of competition.

Sipel was ready for the chance to close out the Royals, the first-place team from the regular season. The right-hander allowed two unearned runs on six hits. He fired 125 pitches. When seven innings weren’t enough to decide it, he stayed on the mound for the eighth.

“There was no conversation,” Sipel said. “I said at the beginning of the game, ‘I don’t want to hear a pitch count. I’m going. Let’s secure this sweep.’”

With runners on first and third and no outs in the eighth, Rayha thought the Royals might walk him to set up a force at any base. They didn’t. Miller and Tyler Burger were due up next. Both have been on fire this week.

Burger would have been named playoffs MVP if such an award existed. The recent Solanco grad went 7-for-12 with two doubles, three triples, a home run, six runs and six RBIs in his last four games. Burger’s two-run homer in the third inning made it 2-2.

No one enjoyed this championship more than Rayha and Miller, who’s also 33 and has worn this uniform for more than a decade.

Miller hugged his son, Oliver, during the celebration. His wife, Katie, and daughter, Ashton, were also there to soak in the moment. Oliver will turn five in October. That came up during Quarryville’s group chat.

“Since my son’s been born, we’ve never lost a championship,” Miller wrote. “We better keep it that way.”

They did.

Each player held up four fingers in the team photo near home plate. Quarryville’s dynasty is still going strong.