Thursday,
April 30, 2015
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Sean Daugherty threw six innings of 8-hit, no-walk baseball to pick up the win for Ramapo, which edged Paramus, 2-1, in less than two hours. |
PARAMUS – A sunny day, a suicide squeeze, a sacrifice fly, two sparkling defensive plays and 13 innings thrown by the two starting pitchers without allowing a walk. That one sentence sums up as crisp a high school baseball game as had been played all season as Ramapo beat Paramus, 2-1, in a game that lasted just 1:45 on Wednesday afternoon.
Matt Capozzi laid down the squeeze that tied the game at 1, Mikey Grasso lifted the sacrifice fly one batter later to give Ramapo the lead in the top of the third inning, Evan Mooney made a diving catch in foul territory down the left field line, Greg Lotushko gunned down a runner at the plate and Sean Dougherty threw six innings without issuing a base on balls. There were a couple of nervous moments in the bottom of the seventh before the Green Raiders got back on the bus with a satisfying victory.
“We always preach to the kinds that, in baseball, you never know when the SportsCenter play is going to be made. It can happen at any time and you have to be ready when the opportunity comes,” said Ramapo head coach Mickey Hunt. “[Capozzi] getting down that squeeze bunt early; that was a huge play in the game and Mikey comes through with a sac fly. Turns out, those plays were the difference and they happened in the third inning.”
Those plays were so important because both starting pitchers were so effective. Paramus dinged Ramapo’s Sean Daugherty in the opening inning and mounted a two-out threat in the second, but shortly thereafter Daugherty found the touch on his curveball and was lights out in his final four innings of work.
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Paramus' Eddie Ghigliotty threw a complete game 8-hitter without allowing an earned run. |
“I just went out there and pitched. We needed the win for [state tournament] power points and everybody really helped out. I was a real team win,” said Daugherty, a senior right-hander who gave up just three hits in his final four innings of work and did not walk a batter. “Early on I was burying my curveball in the dirt a little bit, but then it started to work and it was a good pitch for me in the last couple of innings.”
Paramus’ offense started well enough as Matt Riebesell led off the bottom of the first inning with a single and went to second on a throwing error as he retreated to first base after making the turn. Ryan Heim followed with a single to center and the race was on between Riebesell’s courtesy runner, Chris Regalbuto, and Lotushko, who charged hard in center field. Lotushko fired a strike to Grasso, who stood his ground and made the tag, Matt Ferrara then singled to score Heim, but the damage was limited to a 1-0 Paramus lead.
In the second, Frankie Licari stroked a two-out single the other way and went to third on a perfectly executed hit-and-run with Brandon Sullivan, who smacked one through the vacated right side to put runners on the corners and turn the lineup over. But Daugherty got a flyball to end that threat and gave up little else.
He allowed a two-out double, Paramus’ only extra base hit in the game, to Alec Kaminer in the fourth, a two-out, bunt single to Heim in the fifth and ran into his last spot of bother in the sixth when Garrett Wiedemann reached on a one-out error and moved to second on Kaminer’s two-out single. Licari then lifted a flyball to left field where sophomore Evan Mooney gave chase, finally reaching it with a dive into foul territory to make the grab and end the inning.
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Ramapo catcher Mikey Grasso after making the tag on a play at the plate in the first inning. |
“I wasn’t sure if it was going to go foul or not, but I knew I had to run after it because there were runners in scoring position,” said Mooney, who also went 3-for-3 at the plate and is now a perfect 7-for-7 in games covered by northjerseysports.com. “I went all out and I, uh…it was a lucky catch.”
Ramapo was not able to mount much offense against Paramus starter Eddie Ghigliotty. Ferrara made a heads-up defensive play in the second, letting a bloop drop in front of him before picking it up and starting a 4-6-5-4 double play. Even when The Raiders scored their two runs in the top of the third then were of the unearned variety. Mooney, hitting in the No. 9 spot, singled up the middle to start the inning before Matt Giacose was called upon to bunt. He got it down, but the Spartans had a good chance at the lead runner only to see the throw skip into centerfield. Instead of a runner on first with one out, Ramapo had second and third with no outs and then Capozzi dropped down Ramapo’s first successful suicide squeeze of the season and Mooney slid home to tie the game.
“Right when I got the sign I knew that wherever the pitch was I had to get the bunt down. We have not been that successful with squeeze plays this year so I knew that if I could get it down it would really help my team,” said Capozzi, Ramapo’s senior second baseman. “To get the game tied right there and then take the lead with a sacrifice fly, those are the little things we had to do to get this win.
After Grasso put Ramapo in front, it was all about the starters as Ghigliotty (7 IP, 2 R, 0 ER, 8 H, 0 BB) and Daugherty (6 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 8 H, 4 K, 0 BB) were dominant. Neither issued a walk, neither hit a batter nor threw so much as a wild pitch.
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Alec Kaminer had two hits for Paramus, which is now 9-6 on the season. |
The drama came in the bottom of the seventh when Frankie Aiello came on in relief and, getting the first batter to groundout, he issued the game’s lone walks in succession to Riebesell and Heim. Joey Lentz moved the runners into scoring position before Ferrara hit a line drive into the wind in centerfield. It looked off the bat that it might go for a game-winning extra base hit, but Lotushko read it perfectly and retreated to haul it in for the final out.
“Baseball is always about pitching and it is about defense and offense is always secondary to that. We had two great pitchers going at it today and we had a defensive lapse that cost us two runs and the game,” said Paramus head coach John Morrisette. “You look at the Group 3 state section and all of the top eight teams right now have eight or nine wins. There is just so little separating teams this year and today it was one error. As a coach it is unrelenting. There are no games when you get to exhale and just enjoy what is going on, but it is a tribute to all the programs out there that are making it so hard on each other.”
The loss dropped Paramus to 9-6 on the season, but the Spartans are still in good shape for a Bergen County Tournament berth with three games left before the cutoff. Ramapo improved to 8-10 on the season, which will have to do as far as its county tournament resume is concerned as only a team’s first 18 game are considered.
The Raiders do not have the .650 winning percentage needed for automatic entry and being two games under .500 might not be enough to grab an at large bid, but with the tough schedule played and a lack of bad losses, Hunt thinks his team should still be given a close look for inclusion.
“Power points are part of the process and I know that we have lost to some pretty good teams. We lost to St. Joe’s, we lost to St. Peter’s Prep, we lost to Bergen Catholic, but let’s see where the numbers come out,” said Hunt. “We have to be part of the discussion.”
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