Monday, May 27, 2013

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Senior Rob Kaminsky allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out 9 in St. Joseph's 2-0 win over Old Tappan in the Bergen County Tournament semifinals on Sunday.

DEMAREST – Fair or foul? The answer to that question on a groundball pulled down the third base line by St. Joseph Regional's Alex Woinski with a runner on first with no outs in the bottom of the fourth inning of a then scoreless game would go a long way toward deciding Sunday's Bergen County Tournament semifinal against Old Tappan. One head coach did not see it, the other clearly did.

“I really didn't [see it] because I had a runner coming from second to third and I was waving him around,” said SJR skipper Frank Salvano, who was stationed in the third base coaches box not far from the ball's path. “To tell you the truth I never really saw it.”

Old Tappan skipper Tim Byron did and was a bit more decisive.

“It was a foul ball. What else can I say?,” said Byron. “It was blatantly foul. It was not even close.”

The one opinion that mattered, however, was that of the home plate umpire's and he pointed to fair territory, signaling a fair ball that gave Woinski a double and SJR runners on first and second with no outs. A groundball by Matt Kozuch knocked in the first run, Woinski scored on a passed ball and that was the sum total of all the offense in an old fashioned pitcher's duel that was won by St. Joseph, 2-0, and over in a crisp one-hour-and-thirty minutes.

Old Tappan junior John O'Reilly allowed just five hits and did not walk a batter in six quality innings.

SJR senior left-hander Rob Kaminsky, one of the best pitchers to ever come through Bergen County and a surefire early round pick in the upcoming Major League Baseball draft, threw six shutout innings. He allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out nine all with a smooth motion that makes it look like he is barely trying. His low to mid 90s fastball is made all the more unhittable by his ability to drop knuckle curveballs both into and below the strike zone and he paints either side of the plate with his well-disguised changeup.

But Kaminsky was being matched by Old Tappan's John O'Reilly, the junior right-hander who is building his own reputation as a big game pitcher. He threw all six innings and allowed just five hits without walking a batter.

There is no telling how that bottom of the fourth inning might have played out had Woinski's shot been ruled foul. The Green Knights already had the leadoff man on as Kaminsky beat out an infield single, but when the ruling went St. Joseph's way and it got two runs out of it, there was really no way back into the game for Old Tappan, at least until Kaminsky threw his 100h pitch to get the last out of the sixth inning. There are strict pitch count limits in the SJR dugout and Salvano was not about to set them aside.

Through the first six innings, Old Tappan had had just three baserunners. Christian Runza had an infield single in the top of the second, an inning in which Kaminsky struck out the side, and the Golden Knights got a lead off walk followed by a single through the left side by Dan Jablonski in the top of the third to put and Old Tappan runner in scoring position for the only time in the game. A flyball and a sacrifice bunt put runners on second and third with two outs, but Kaminsky got a called strike three to end Old Tappan's only threat. He had retired seven hitters when he walked off the mound after the top of the sixth.

Alex Woinski hit the double down the line that led to SJR's two runs.

“I was going to go back out there, but Coach Salvano is very good with the pitchers, there are strict pitch limits and you don't see many arm injuries around here at St. Joe's,” said Kaminsky. “He told me I was at 100 or 101 [pitches] and 100 is my limit. I said I would go back out there and he said it was my decision, but I knew deep down that it was his decision. He is the head coach and I respect that.”

If there was any hope left for Old Tappan it came when Runza (2-for-3) welcomed Mike Warren to the game with a bullet off the left field wall that missed going out of the park by about two feet leading off the top of the seventh. Being a catcher, Runza settled for a single, but there was some life left in the Golden Knights.

“I got less hair now then when the game started. Are you kidding me? Especially when that ball goes 400 feet off the bat to first batter [Warren faced]...,” said Salvano, entertaining the gaggle of reporters gathered around him. “ I was dooky-ing in my pants.”

But Warren cleaned up the mess with a little help from his catcher, Isaias Quiroz. A strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play, a crucial caught stealing on a rope thrown down to second by Quiroz, accounted for two outs and Warren got a flyball to end it and put top-seeded and undefeated St. Joseph into the county final where it will play the winner of Monday's semifinal between River Dell and Rutherford on Wednesday in Demarest.

“I had all the confidence in the world in Warren. He's pitched in tougher situations and I knew he would do well,” said Kaminsky. “It is always fun to see a junior step up in a spot like that and he saved the day.”

Christian Runza had two of Old Tappan's three hits, including a leadoff single off the left field wall in the top of the seventh.

While it was a big win for SJR, it is just the start of what it hopes will be a historic two-week stretch in which it will try to finish off an undefeated season with county, state sectional and outright state championships as well as the No. 1 overall state ranking.

“We'll have a [state] game Tuesday, a county championship game on Wednesday and then, if we win Tuesday, we'll have a state semifinal game on Friday. This is the fun time of the year where you just go one game at a time,” said Salvano, the all-time leader in career wins for a Bergen County coach. “We want to win eight [playoff] games and right now we have won the first three. If we want to do what we set out to do at the beginning of the year, which was to win the Triple Crown, we are still not even halfway there yet.”

On the other side, Old Tappan saw its season come to an abrupt end. Having been upset by 15th-seeded Northern Highlands last week in the opening round of the North 1, Group 3 state sectional playoffs, it was county title or bust, sort of, for the Golden Knights.

“It's real disappointing. If you look at our record, 23-6, it was a good year, a good record and we won our league, but we got bounced from the states by a kid [Will Mohr] who pitched probably the best game he is ever going to throw in his life and today getting shutout down by one of the best guys around and it is over,” said Byron. “It's a good season, but a disappointing end. You would like to take something home with you.”

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