May
30, 2005
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Jason Koziol got 13 ground ball outs in a complete game five-hitter as St. Joseph eliminated Ramapo from the county tournament for the third time in the last four years. |
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EMERSON -- With the schedule packed with games and missing No. 2 starter Justin Figart, who is out with a back injury, St. Joseph Regional head coach Frank Salvano has few options when it comes to his starting rotation. He got a complete game from T.J. O'Grady to get past Emerson in the Bergen County Round of 16 on Saturday and on Sunday it was staff ace Jason Koziol's turn in the quarterfinals against Ramapo.
"We were down to three pitchers and I told our guys this weekend that I would give them the ball in the first inning and I'll see you in the seventh," said Salvano. "We don't have a bullpen right now."
But as
it turned out, Koziol was all SJR needed as he found the downward movement
on his two-seam fastball and got the Ramapo hitters to pound the ball into
the ground time after time. After allowing three hits and two runs in the
second and third innings, he retired 10 straight hitters until there was one
out in the seventh.
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| Dave Schwartz drove in the game-winning run with a single on this swing in the bottom of the fifth. |
The top-seeded Green Knights played a perfect game defensively and got some timely hits on the way to a 4-2 win and next weekend's semifinal against No. 5 New Milford, a winner over Fair Lawn on Sunday. It was the third time in the last four years that SJR has eliminated Ramapo from the county tournament.
"I felt like I found my arm slot like I had last year. I was able to hit the outside corner and work down and when I do that I get a lot of groundballs," said Koziol, who went the distance on a five-hitter to improve to 6-3 on the season. "I didn't have a curveball today, but my two-seamer was sinking, I could hit the outside corner with my four-seamer. My fastball saved me."
Of the 21 outs that Koziol recorded, two were by strikeout, three were on infield pop-ups, two were fly balls and one was a line-out. The other 13 were on ground balls gobbled up by the SJR infield.
"After
the first two innings, he got in a groove and was throwing ground ball after
ground ball," said Knights catcher Dave Schwartz. "When he is on it is Groundball
City and when runners get on he is even tougher."
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| Tom LaStella tied the game for SJR wth a home run on this swing in the bottom of the fourth. |
St. Joe's took the lead in the bottom of the first inning when Terrence Klein led off with a double and scored on a Dean Duchak double two batters later. Ramapo (20-8) tied it in the top of the second when Kevin Ascolese drew a leadoff walk, went to second on a ground out, third on a deep fly ball to center by Jack Botz and scored when Mike Verga stroked a two-out single through the middle.
In the third, Ascolese gave the Raiders the lead when, with two outs, he sliced a line drive down the right field line that landed on the chalk and scored Eric Bail, who led off the inning with a single and stole second.
Ramapo held its one run lead until Tom LaStella led off the bottom of the fourth inning with a home run to left center. SJR went ahead for good in the fifth when Duchak singled leading off and took second on an outfield error. Duchak was still at second with one out when LaStella hit a pea right back to the box that Ramapo starter Mike Lauricella gloved in self-defense.
Lauricella
spun toward second and had Duchak leaning, but his throw was high and, after
just avoiding an inning double play, Schwartz blooped a single into short
right center that scored Duchak with the go-ahead run that made it 3-2. It
was the second time in as many years that a Schwartz hit provided the deciding
runs in a county tournament win over Ramapo. Last
season he hit an eighth inning walk-off, two-run homer in the quarterfinals.
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| Mike Lauricella went the distance and kept Ramapo in the game until the final out. |
"Last year it was the walk-off home run and this year it was a single. I guess it is just something about Ramapo," said Schwartz. "I didn't think that they were going to pitch to me with a base open, but they threw me a fastball and I just tried to poke it the other way and it fell in. Lucky for us."
Klein doubled again leading off the sixth and Brent Weiss singled him home for an insurance run that looked huge when Ramapo got something going in its final at bat. After Ethan Pickett made a pretty play at third base, a short-hop pick while charging hard, to erase the lead off hitter, Verga single to right and Kevin Gallagher beat out a bunt base hit. But Koziol got a pop out and Steve Casares gloved the last of the Raiders' groundballs for the final out of the game.
Lauricella pitched well for Ramapo, despite taking the loss. He did not strike out a batter, but issued only one walk and made SJR earn everything it got. One of the four runs he allowed was unearned and he soaked up all six innings, which saved the Raider pitching staff some wear and tear heading into Tuesday's North 1, Group 3 state sectional semifinal against Nutley.
Sunday's
was Ramapo's third grueling game in as many days, it played well against the
No. 1 seed and still has at least one game left in its season, but all of
that was little consolation to Raider skipper Mickey Hunt, who was not about
to use the busy schedule as an excuse.
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| Ethan Pickett and the SJR defense played error free to back up Jason Koziol's five-hitter. |
"I am selfish and I want to win every game we play. People asked me all week whether I was going for the state tournament or the counties, but we play to win every time we take the field," said Hunt. "You go outside in 40 degree weather in March to be ready for a challenge like this and baseball is meant to be played everyday. That is the beauty of it.
"It didn't bother me and the guys in our dugout came here to play. The schedule is what it is and we were ready for it and it showed. Mike [Lauricella] pitched a helluva game. We were right there, a hit away, a base runner away, from taking out the top seed in the tournament."
But instead, St. Joseph is one win away from its seventh trip to the county final in the last eight years. The Knights are two wins away from a third county championship in the last four years and are still working toward defending the Non-Public Parochial A state title they won last year. SJR will play Bergen Catholic on Tuesday in the sectional semifinals.
"At this point of the season it is one big game after the other. It doesn't really matter what color the other team is wearing," said Schwartz. "It's lose or go home and you have to bring it everyday. That's what we like, it makes us better."
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