Tuesday,
May 5, 2015
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
|
Kyle Seickel threw 6 1/3 innings of five-hit baseball to lead Westwood to a 4-1 win at River Dell and into the Bergen County Tournament. |
ORADELL – With an 8-8 record coming in, well short of the mandated .650 winning percentage needed for automatic entry into the Bergen County Baseball Tournament, Westwood had one last shot to impress the selection committee in an attempt to gain an at large berth. On the road against River Dell, a team already safely in the tournament field and looking to win an outright league title but also one that they beat earlier this season, the opportunity was certainly there for the Cardinals, especially coming off a win over highly-regarded Mahwah late last week.
After Kyle Seickel threw six-and-a-third innings of five-hit baseball, after Joey Lagomarsino and Evan Hull provided some late breathing room with back–to-back, two-out, solo home runs in the top of the seventh and after Kyle Bravin retired the last two batters of the game, Westwood had a 4-1 win that it hoped would push it into the county tournament.
“This was a statement game. We wanted them to go into the county tournament meeting tonight and say, “Hey, what about Westwood?” said the Cardinals’ head coach Chris Izzo, whose team swept the season series against River Dell. “If you look at what we have done in the last week; a 3-2 loss to Ramsey, a 9-8 win over Mahwah and then another win over River Dell, I would think that we would have to be mentioned positively.”
They were and a few hours after it got on the bus back to Westwood, the Cardinals found out that they were in the Bergen County Tournament as the No. 20 seed with an opening round game at No. 11 Emerson on Wednesday. River Dell (14-5), which fell into a three way tie for the league title with Ramsey and Mahwah, drew the No. 6 seed and will have a first round bye.
|
Chris Weber drove in the River Dell run with a sacrifice fly in the fifth. |
The turning point came early, in the bottom of the first inning to be exact, when Chris Weber drew a two-out walk and Steven Yelin reached on an infield single. The next batter, Julian Smith, then smoked a line drive to left field and put Westwood’s Collin Saunders in a do-or-die position. When Saunders entered into his dive, the outcome was either going to be a defensive gem or an extra base hit that, with the runners moving on contact, would have scored two runs and maybe even a third.
Saunders made the circus catch.
“I think the most important play of the game was the two-out line drive to left in the first inning. If that gets by it is probably an inside-the-park home run and we are up 3-0, but that was a heckuva play by that kid [Saunders],” said River Dell head coach Brandon Flanagan. “We certainly pitched well enough to win, but we left a ton of guys on base and you can’t do that. And both times we have played them this year they have had guys step up and pitch.”
The first time the two teams met it was Bravin that got the start and the win, this time it was Seickel, who was throwing his off-speed stuff, especially his curveball, for strikes, most importantly early in the count. That made his fastball look all the more imposing and he worked in reverse to great effect.
“River Dell is a great hitting team and I had to mix it up a lot. They can hit the curveball so I tried to keep it away and keep them off balance,” said Seickel (6 1/3 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 7 K, 2 BB). “I had good control of the curveball so I was able to throw it to different spots – up, down, in and away – and confuse them a little bit.”
|
Westwood's Evan Hull homered for a second straight game. This time it was a solo shot in the seventh. |
Seickel and Bravin were also instrumental in getting the lead they were later in charge of protecting. With two outs and the bases empty against River Dell starter Lucas Salerno, Seickel singled the opposite way and Eddie Vorvolakos followed with a single and both scored on Bravin’s infield single and throwing error and cost the Golden Hawks a couple of extra bases. River Dell second baseman Peter Capuano ended the rally with a diving catch on a blooper behind the mound, but that damage had been done as Westwood had a 2-0 lead.
Seickel walked only two in the game, but the second one was costly as it came against Mike Fasano, River Dell’s No. 9 hitter who was leading off the bottom of the fifth. Jake Fletcher bunted for a base hit two batters later and both runners moved into scoring position on a wild pitch. Weber followed with a sacrifice fly, but Seickel limited the damage by getting the next hitter to ground out to Finbarr Saunders at third base.
The score was still 2-1 heading into the top of the seventh inning and looked like it would be frozen there heading into River Dell’s final turn at bat when Salerno (7 IP, 4 R, 4 ER, 9 H, 8 K, BB) struck out the first two hitters, but then Lagomarsino and Hull hit consecutive pitches over the left field fence to make it 4-1.
Seickel got the leadoff batter to hit a comebacker, but when Fasano reached on an error with one out to put the tying run in the on deck circle, Izzo called for the left-handed Bravin, who got two straight flyball outs to close out the win, Westwood’s ninth on the season.
|
River Dell's Lucas Salerno went the distance on a nine-hitter. |
“The thing with this team is that we just keep our heads down and keep fighting. Against Mahwah we were down big before Evan Hull hit a three-run homer and we just kept going,” said Bravin, who had the game-winning RBI and earned the save. “He hit another one today and those two [home runs] in the seventh were big. I was warming up back there and I see those two balls go out and it was good to see. A three-run lead in the seventh is a lot better than one.”
Now that Westwood has earned its spot in the county tournament, it will look to make some noise starting on Wednesday in Emerson.
“We had a good talk after Sunday’s practice and I told the guys that if I get interviewed again or somebody asks about what kind of team this is or how I would describe it, I would just say that this team is a group of fighters,” said Izzo, who followed his script perfectly. “Teams know that two run, three run or four run leads against us are not safe. They have seen what we have done and even in games that we have lost we have come back fighting. It’s a great group of guys because they are mentally and physically tough.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME. TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT
OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com. |