Friday, May 14, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Kevin Nitsche went the distance on a three-hitter for Waldwick, the No. 13 seed that won is first Bergen County Tournament game in quite some time, 7-2, over River Dell on Thursday afternoon.

WALDWICK -- Despite having seven hits through the first four innings and base runners all over the place, Waldwick, a team that is used to putting crooked numbers on the scoreboard, had little to show for it. Stymied by the four double plays that River Dell turned in the first four innings of the opening round matchup in the Bergen County Tournament, all Waldwick had was a one-run lead and some disappointing endings to otherwise promising turns at bat.

“I just kept telling the guys to keep plugging, to keep hitting the ball hard and that sooner or later it was going to have to find a hole,” said Frank Clark, who is in his first season as Waldwick’s head coach. “That’s all you can do. You can’t direct where it is going to go. We just had to keep our approach, keep putting the ball in play and hopefully good things would eventually come out of it.”

The good things finally came in the bottom of the fifth inning when Eric Greenwald’s two-run bomb over the fence just to the left of straight away centerfield gave the Warriors some breathing room and they came in bunches in the bottom of the sixth when Waldwick batted around, tacked on three more runs and turned a close game into a 7-2 win at Waldwick High School.

Adam Chiciak drew River Dell to within 2-1 with a home run on this swing in the top of the fifth.

It was the first Bergen County Tournament win for anyone currently associated with the Waldwick program and the 13th-seeded Warriors earned their spot in the Round of 16 where they will play No. 4 Pascack Valley on Saturday in a 3:30 p.m. start at Northern Valley/Demarest High School.

“We are used to jumping on teams early and putting runs on the board, but it didn’t happen today. River Dell played good defense,” said Greenwald, whose home run off of River Dell starter Dave Powell was his seventh of the season. “I had a long at bat the time before so I was kind of waiting to jump on one. He hung a curveball up and I got it.”

To that point, the Warriors’ only run came on a ‘Waldwick Special’, a two-run homer the opposite way and over the short porch in right field, by Michael Freeman in the bottom of the second inning. River Dell, despite being out hit by a 7-1 margin through the first four innings, drew to within 2-1 in the top of the fifth when Adam Chiciak took advantage of one of Kevin Nitsche’s few mistakes and deposited it over the centerfield fence.

“Defensively I am happy. Defensively we did a good job. We turned four double plays, but you have to tip your hat to the kid [Nitsche]. He made the pitches in big spots and we didn’t and that was the bottom line,” said River Dell head coach Brandon Flanagan. “We put the ball in play; we only struck out twice in the game. [Nitsche] pounded the strike zone and we rolled over on a lot of balls, but to their credit they made all the plays in the field and really didn’t give us a chance for a big inning by making mistakes.”

Waldwick catcher Eric Greenwald was a perfect 3-for-3, including a two-run homer on this swing in the bottom of the fifth inning.

While River Dell played error free, Waldwick committed just one harmless error behind Nitsche, who looked his coach in the eye and asked for the ball in the county tournament and then let his defense do the work. He went the distance on a three-hitter and finished with two strikeouts against three walks, but all of those came in the final two innings with Waldwick comfortably in front.

“Kevin is a battler. He is just a touch kid, he is a little guy and he just goes out there and fights. His control is key, he had it today and he wants the ball,” said Clark. “We were flip-flopping on who was going to start the game and he came up to me and said, ‘I want the ball’. He looked at me eye-to-eye and I said ‘You got it.”

And he made the most of the opportunity.

“I really wanted the ball. This was a big game, a county tournament game, and I just wanted to get the win for us and move on,” said Nitsche, who improved to 4-1 on the season and used his knowledge of his home field to his advantage. “My control was good and I was trying to pound them inside a lot, especially the righties because I didn’t want them hitting the ball [to right field]. You see our fence over there, it’s short, so I tried to get inside, get ahead and then come back with my curveball.”

Dave Powell (6-2) started and threw the first 4 1/3 innings for River Dell.

Chiciak had two of River Dell’s three hits. In addition to his fifth inning homer, we had a one-out single in the seventh when Golden Hawks scored their other run when Dylan Smith came home on a balk call with runners on the corners. River Dell’s only other threat came in the fourth when Mike Oliver stroked a one-out single and Ryan Blute, the next hitter, reached on Waldwick’s lone error, but a 4-6-3 double play started by Chris Cron, turned by Sal Trifilio and completed by Steve Zumbano quickly erased the mistake.

River Dell, the No. 20 seed, fell to 14-10 on the season and will play Westwood, it BCSL-American Division rival, on Monday in the opening round of the North 1, Group 2 state sectional playoffs. Dave Powell was tagged with just his second loss of the season after a 6-1 start.

“I give Waldwick a lot of credit. Not counting that first home run, which was basically a pop fly, they hit the ball hard. That home run [by Greenwald] would have been out anywhere and even some of their base hits they hit hard,” said Flanagan. “They earned it and we have to look to the states, which are right in front of us. We have Westwood on Monday and that is the focus now.”

Waldwick improved to 17-4 and has a bit more to juggle. They will play Pascack Valley on Saturday in the county tournament and are the No. 2 seed in the North 1, Group 1 state sectional playoffs where they will host No. 15 Butler in the opening round on Monday.

Michael Freeman about to connect on his two-run opposite field homer that gave Waldwick a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second.

Greenwald was a perfect 3-for-3 in the game with a single and a double to go along with his home run. James Dertouzos also had a perfect day at the plate with four singles in four at bats to go along with a stolen base and a run scored. Nitsche (1-for-4) had an RBI single in the seventh; Zumbano had two singles and a run scored in three at bats; Cron had a single and a run scored and Trifilio also singled and scored in the three-run seventh.

It was a complete effort as Waldwick’s pitching, defense and hitting all did their share and they will need a similar effort against Pascack Valley on Saturday to get to the quarterfinals.

“My freshman year we got in a county game and we got rocked by Indian Hills, but this year we feel like we have the kind of team that can make it pretty far,” said Greenwald. “We have to play well and definitely score some runs because we know that Pascack Valley is good. We need some good pitching because they can hit, they are the No. 4 seed for a reason, so we are going to have to play as well as we did today.”

But whatever happens on Saturday, this season’s county tournament is already a success for Waldwick as wins don’t come around that often.

“This is my first year here so I don’t exactly when the last one was. I know they were in a play-in game a couple of years ago and lost [to Indian Hills] and were in a play-in game a couple of years before that and lost,” said Clark. “I don’t know when the last win was, but we got one today and this is one we are going to enjoy for a while.”

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