April
13, 2004
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| Rutherford's Zach Gorman scoring an unearned run after a wild pitch in the top of the fifth inning. |
WESTWOOD - Even though each team had one run through seven innings of rain-soaked baseball, the numbers 90 and 139 were the two that would make the most impact on the outcome of the game. Those numbers represented the pitch counts of the starting pitchers, Rutherford's Vin Mazzaro and Westwood's Dylan Cacciola, who were each equally impressive through the regulation seven innings.
Because Mazzaro, the hard-throwing junior, had the lower pitch count, he was the one still available to take the mound in the eighth inning, while Cacciola, the freshman lefthander, was out of bullets and out of the game when Rutherford scored twice its final at bat.
Mazzaro picked up the last two of his 18 strikeouts with the tying runs in scoring position and closed out a 3-1 win that improves Rutherford's record to 5-0 on the season and 2-0 in the BCSL-American Division.
"Somewhere
around the fourth inning when we both had a lot of strikeouts and pitched
out of trouble, I started to feel like it was a one on one battle between
me and (Cacciola)," said Mazzaro, who allowed just three hits while throwing
108 pitches. "This is a good win for us. It was our first tough league game
and hopefully we can keep it going."
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| Westwood freshman Dylan Cacciola threw seven innings without allowing an earned run. |
Cacciola, who throws three pitches -- a hard fastball, a bending curve and an effective changeup -- pitched out of three bases loaded situations in the first four innings and had a 1-0 lead heading into the top of the fifth after Westwood scratched out an unearned run in the bottom of the fourth.
"Dylan has the poise of a burglar, he really does. He's a freshman but he never gets rattled and is always focused on making the next good pitch," said Westwood head coach Joe Yurko. "He's polished and he showed it today the way he went out there to compete against a kid like Mazzaro."
The only two runs to cross the plate over the first seven innings were both unearned. Westwood struck first in the bottom of the fourth when Colin Hourigan reached on an error to lead off the inning. Keith Dattilo then laid down a bunt up the first base line and was safe when Mazzaro couldn't get a clean grip on it as Dattilo raced by. Another error loaded the bases and a wild pitch allowed Hourigan to score the game's first run before Mazzaro fanned two of the next three hitters he faced to escape the jam.
Rutherford tied the score in the top of the fifth when, with two outs and the bases empty, Zach Gorman struck out swinging on a ball in the dirt, but reached second base on an overthrow to complete the out and scored on Matt Ventura's clutch single.
"No matter
what the situation is, whenever we come up here (to Westwood) we know we are
in for a game and today was no different," said Rutherford head coach Mike
Lauterhahn. "What it came down to today was who was going to make a big play
and who was going to get a big hit."
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| Rutherford's Vin Mazzaro struck out the side three times, including the four Ks he rung up in the bottom of the seventh inning. |
Ventura's hit was Rutherford's fifth of the game and the last until the top of the eighth when Chris O'Boyle, hitting out of the No. 9 slot in the order, led off with a single off Matt Royland, who took over for Cacciola to start extra innings.
O'Boyle then stole second, Jon Guzman's single pushed him to third and the Bulldogs had two runners in scoring position when Mazzaro came to the plate with one out. Mazzaro lifted a fly ball down the right field line that Tom Harley camped under before throwing a two-hopper to the plate.
The ball arrived at about the same time as O'Boyle, who clipped Datillo, the Westwood catcher, on the way by and the ball skipped into dead ball territory, allowing Guzman to trot home with the insurance run.
Mazzaro closed the game out in style, striking out the last two batters he faced after Randy Scott and Harley reached on errors to start the bottom of the eighth. Mazzaro showed his stamina by striking out six hitters in the final two innings, including four in the bottom of the seventh when a dropped third strike allowed Jesse Berger to reach with two outs.
"This was Vinny's second start of the year. The first one was against Garfield in the same type of weather and I am really looking forward to seeing him when the sun breaks through and it's not freezing," said Lauterhahn, whose team rode Mazzaro and Guzman, the Bulldogs' No. 2 starter, all the way to the state sectional final last season. "Games like this really prepare you for the state and county tournaments and when you get there after going up against pitching like we see in this league, nothing surprises you because you've seen it all year just as good as you are going to see against a bigger school or a parochial."
Westwood fell to 2-2 with the loss, but found out what Cacciola can do in a big game. After opening the season with a win over Kittatinny, the team that eliminated the Cardinals from the state playoffs last season, and battling Mazzaro, one of Bergen County's top handful of pitchers and one of the best junior hurlers in the state, to a stalemate, Cacciola has already put his stamp on a team that went 16-8 last season with seven sophomores that are now juniors in its starting lineup.
"This was another in a long line of great games that we have played against Rutherford. Every time we play them it comes down to a run or two," said Yurko. "Hey, you have to give a tip of the cap to Mazzaro. We already knew how good he was and he proved it again today, but my guy (Cacciola) pitched a great game too and we know he has a lot more of them in him."
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