Thursday,
April 23, 2015
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Sophomore Evan Mooney was a perfect 4-for-4 at the plate for Ramapo, which broke open a close game in the seventh and posted a 10-3 win at Old Tappan on Wednesday. |
OLD TAPPAN – Public school baseball in Bergen County, especially in the Big North Conference, has been impossible to predict all season. It seems like. There is parity all over the place and that has made it hard for just about all of the Group 2 and Group 3 schools north of Route 4 to gain any kind of consistency.
There are going to be many similar resumes landing on the desk of the committee that will choose the Bergen County Baseball Tournament field in a couple of weeks so getting hot starting now is certainly in the best interest of any team looking to reach the .650 winning percentage needed for automatic entry or separate itself in what will be a deep pool of at large hopefuls.
Perennial powers like Ramapo and Northern Valley/Old Tappan were hovering just below the .500 mark heading into Wednesday’s game which, like all games that they will play between now and the postseason cutoff, was a must-win for both sides.
“We haven’t left much margin of error for ourselves so if we want to make the county tournament it had to start today,” said Ramapo head coach Mickey Hunt. “We have a chance to make progress this week. We played today, we play [Thursday], we play Friday and we play on Saturday so we have opportunities, but it had to start today here in a place that we have had some rough times in the past.”
It looked like the game, played between the raindrops most of the way, was going to go right down to the wire as Ramapo held just a one-run lead entering its final turn at bat. The Green Raiders have had trouble putting opponents away with that one big inning that removes any doubt, but they finally broke out in the top of the seventh just as a rainbow, a double rainbow at that, appeared high over the leftfield fence.
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Logan Butler had two of Old Tappan's five hits and made a couple of standout plays at third base. |
Ramapo sent 10 hitters to the plate in the final frame and scored six times to put the hammer down on a 10-3 win that puts it at 6-7 on the season.
“The last couple of games we have started hitting and that has to continue,” said Armond Biagini, Ramapo’s senior first baseman, who finished 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored. “It’s been timely hitting that has been the problem for most of the year. We got guys on; we just couldn’t really get them over. We’ve been missing that timely hit, but it is starting to come around and hopefully we can keep it going.”
Old Tappan, which came in riding a five-game losing streak, put together a confidence building first inning as Logan Butler’s one-out double followed by a James Hrbek single set the table for a two-run frame and both came around to score on wild pitches after reaching third base.
But the bottom of the Ramapo order returned the favor in the top of the second with sophomore Evan Mooney (4-for-4, RBI, R, 2B) kicking off his career day at the plate with a lead-off infield single. Connor Ambrose followed with a single and Matt Capozzi drew a one-out walk to load the bases in front of Matt Giacose (3-for-5, 4 RBI, R), the senior leadoff hitter who ripped a two-run single into leftfield that tied the game. Capozzi then trotted home on an error with Mikey Grasso (2-for-5) picking up the RBI that gave Ramapo the lead for good, 3-2.
“Our team has been struggling at the plate a little bit so it was nice to turn it around. We are in a little bit of a groove now and we just have to carry it into the next game,” said Mooney, who started at shortstop on Wednesday, but has also played the outfield and pitched in his first varsity season. “It’s been interesting because I wasn’t even sure if I would make varsity this year, so I am really enjoying this. I will play anywhere they tell me and I am just trying to learn as much as I can.”
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Greg Lotushko had two hits and scored three times for Ramapo. |
Paul Cantilina (4 1/13 IP, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 H, K, 4 BB) Ramapo’s senior lefty, settled in after the shaky first inning and retired eight in a row and nine of the 10 hitters he faced in the second through fourth inning. He left with one-out and two out in the fifth with junior Matt Valente (2 2/3 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 H, K, BB, S) coming on to induce a key 6-4-3 double play with Biagini making a tough pick on the back end to preserve the one-run lead.
Greg Lotushko (2-for-4, 3B, RBI) led off the sixth with a triple that turned into a run on a ground ball hit by Capozzi (1-for-3, RBI, 2 R) to make it 4-2 before Old Tappan’s Tyler Sokolich got that run back in the bottom of the inning. It was shaping up to be a tight finish before Ramapo broke the game open in its final at bat.
Old Tappan fell to 4-6-1 with the loss, while Ramapo is now just a game under .500 and hoping to gain more ground this week with games remaining against Teaneck, Ridgewood and St. Peter’s Prep.
“We see every game as almost like a must-win now. We are one game under .500 and we know we need to get going if we want to make the counties,” said Grasso, Ramapo’s senior catcher. “We have a lot of seniors on this team and we want to make a good last run.”
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