Jun 6, 2008
GHS baseball falls to Farmington; Mora eager for next year
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It seemed almost fitting that an up-and-down season by the 2008 Greenwich High baseball team ended essentially the same way.
Indeed, the Cardinals were both “up” and “down” in their 8-4 loss to Farmington in the qualifying round of the Class LL state tournament.
Greenwich was up 3-0 after only a half-inning of play, and even after Farmington had cut it to 3-2, the Cards added another run in the fourth to make it 4-2.
But Big Red found itself down after the host Indians erupted for five runs in their half of the fourth and tacked on another in the fifth to post the win and end Greenwich’s season at 8-13.
Farmington at 9-11 and Greenwich at 8-12 were the 32nd and 33rd seeded teams in the 33-team Class LL field, and thus met in the only qualifying game for the right to face top-seeded Stamford. The Black Knights then defeated Farmington 2-0 in the first round of the tourney.
The Cardinals would have loved another shot at their FCIAC rivals and a chance to avenge a 6-3 loss to them back on April 18. And for the first half of the game it appeared they might get their wish.
Ricky Riscica belted a two-run triple in the top of the first and then scored on an RBI single by Jeff DeVico as GHS jumped out to its early 3-0 lead.
“We did get an early lead and I was hoping we would play some good defense and hopefully add on to the lead,” head coach Mike Mora said. “Once you do that, hopefully you put them to sleep.
“But we gave them a run in the first inning on a balk, and then we made three other errors. We gave them the breaks. Then they started hitting the ball and they started to capitalize.”
Jason Grabowski, who reached base on a single, eventually came around to score on Robbie Catalano’s infield single to make the score 4-2.
That lead was short-lived, however, as Farmington recorded the pivotal five-run rally in its half of the fourth to take a 7-4 lead and never look back.
“Once you fall behind like that it’s tough to come back,” Mora said. “We didn’t score a lot of runs this season and we had to score runs to come back. Once you’re down, you can’t bunt, you can’t hit and run. It’s hard to come back.”
Especially with the way Farmington’s Nick St. Pierre was pitching. He settled down after the shaky first inning and held the Cardinals to just one run over the last six frames, and none over the final three as he scattered seven hits in the complete-game effort.
“Their pitcher was pretty good,” Mora agreed. “He had three pitches — fastball, curveball and changeup — and he threw them all for strikes.”
The Cardinals, meanwhile, went through four pitchers, who combined to give up nine hits.
“It was a hard loss to swallow, especially after getting the early lead,” Mora, who’s led Greenwich to the state tourney all eight seasons he’s been at the helm, said. “But that’s high school baseball. Kids are not perfect. They’re going to make mistakes.
“But our guys didn’t give up. They hung in there right to the end.”
One such player was sophomore Yuta Okazaki, who went 3-for-4 at the plate for the Cards.
“He was the only player from our team to make the All-FCIAC West team,” Mora said of his young infielder. “He had a real good season and hit over .350.”
Mora’s junior co-captains, Riscica, a first baseman, and DeVico behind the plate each received All-FCIAC Honorable Mention. They both return next season along with junior outfielder Adam Franchella, who will be the third senior tri-captain.
That kind of returning experience has Mora already looking forward to next year’s team, especially if the Cardinals can find some pitching to go with it.
“We lose a lot of senior pitching,” the GHS coach noted, “but I’ll have four juniors who can throw strikes and a couple of senior who can also pitch. We’ll be young on the mound, but I think we can be pretty good.
“I would have liked to have done better this year record wise,” Mora added. “But more importantly I would have liked us to have done better job cohesively as a team. We need to be together as a team.
“If we can do that, and hopefully the kids work on some things during the off-season, we should be better next year.”
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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