May 8, 2008
Big first spells doom for GHS baseball team
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Although the Greenwich High School baseball team was determined to get on the winning side of the scoreboard, it was a five-run first inning for St. Joseph High School that spelled doom for the Cardinals Monday afternoon.
The Cadets added three more runs throughout the game and went on to beat Greenwich 8-4 in a battle for a possible playoff position in the upcoming Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference playoffs.
“We’re just not clicking yet,” Greenwich head coach Mike Mora said. “We’re not getting everything going at the same time. I thought against Trinity we were coming along, but then comes the first inning in this game and they put five runs on the board. I thought offensively we played well after that, but you can’t give up five runs to start the game.”
Before the start of the game, St. Joe’s head coach Bob Studley told his team how important games against teams in the same situation are, not only for improving the team’s win percentage, but also gaining that valuable tiebreaker.
“This game was big for us,” Studley said. “There’s a few teams at the top and a bunch of teams in the middle. Record-wise we were right next to each other, so to start out with five runs lets your pitcher take a few deep breaths because he could throw strikes. It also let everybody else breathe easier. It was a terrific start.”
The Cadets got the ball rolling in the first, as Colin Morris and Anthony Vinci reached on an error and Nick Piccirillo, Ted Kunzik and Frank Fedak each blasted a double. Sam Ditchkus pitched in with a single and before the Cardinals could blink, they were trailing 5-0.
“We had some problems, but the kids never got down on themselves,” Mora said. “They didn’t put their heads down, and they played baseball. I am proud of them for that. We didn’t win the game, but we played the game hard, used our heads and hustled, so I am happy.”
St. Joseph scored another run in the second inning, when Ditchkus exploded for a home run over the left field fence to make the score 6-0. The Cadets added two more runs in the third inning, when Greenwich left Vinci and Kunzik on base with errors and Eric Zavadsky hit an RBI double down the third base line. The second run scored when Mike Dinihanian hit into a double play, but it forced home Kunzik at third.
“The bleeding happened early, but we started over after the second inning,” said Greenwich starting pitcher Michael Stolfi. “It was a close game after that. We found our sticks and played our positions well. The guys in the outfield were phenomenal.”
Leading the charge for Greenwich was Stolfi. After the third inning, he gave up only two hits the rest of the way. In total he finished giving up eight runs, three of which were earned, eight hits, three walks and two strikeouts.
“I couldn’t really find my spots the first couple of innings and they capitalized on it,” Stolfi said. “They got their shots early, but as the game progressed I felt better and it showed. I threw a lot of fastballs, but my splitter got me out of a lot of trouble because I was throwing that for strikes. My fastball also felt really good today.”
“I give Stolfi credit because he pitched stronger as the game went along and that’s all you can ask for,” Mora said. “He’s a senior ace of our staff and he gave us seven strong innings and it kept our pitchers fresh. He started to get the ball down. He was up in the first inning, but he settled in and got the ball down and threw the curveball for strikes.”
Although the Cadets scored twice in the top of the third inning, the Cards came right back in the bottom of the inning. Leading off the inning was third baseman Michael Dunster and he unloaded a home run down the right field line. Andrew Coffey reached first on a single to left and Matt Berdoff reached base on a fielder’s choice to second. Yuta Ozazaki was up next and hit a single to right. Another single by Ricky Riscica loaded the bases and on catcher Jeff Devico’s fly to deep right, Berdoff tagged from third and scored.
Stolfi faced only nine batters the next three innings. When he didn’t get the easy out, the defense was standing tall, whether it was a grab by Berdoff in the outfield, a stretch off first from Ryan Fazio or Andrew Coffey at second starting double plays.
“Thank God we jumped on Greenwich early because their defense settled in and Stolfi started getting outs and throwing strikes. Stolfi got into a groove over there. If that game went 20 innings long, we would have lost it. Thankfully the game’s only seven innings and we did what we needed to do. We got some double plays and some grounders.”
The Cardinals added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Left fielder Adam Franchella led off with a huge triple that bounced off the left field wall.
Back-to-back walks to Fazio and Dunster loaded the bases. An error by St. Joe’s plated Franchella and Fazio scored on another Cadets error.
Greenwich had a golden opportunity in the fifth inning to tack on some more runs. Riscica led off with a single up the middle. Devico was up next and hit a roller to third. St. Joe’s third baseman threw to second for the out and was unable to make a throw to first for the double play. However, Devico was called out at first because the umpire said Riscica overslid the bag at second base.
St. Joe’s starting pitcher Jim Dimon went the distance, giving up nine hits and four earned runs while striking out one and walking one batter.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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