Sports

Chaminade Stifles St. Anthony's Baseball 6-4

Flyer pitcher Eric Truss gets five first-pitch outs against Friars in 6.2 innings of work.

You could see the frustration in Rob Wilcox’s face.

“What was that? Six pitches?” the first year coach of baseball squad barked at his bench.

It was seven pitches, courtesy of the arm of righty Eric Truss.

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Seven pitches to get three outs in the third inning, one more than his right arm delivered in the previous frame. Of the 90 pitches Truss had through six and two-thirds, five were first pitch outs.

“That’s not our usual approach,” Wilcox said. “Giving six or seven first pitch outs is not our usual go”

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Tuss’ low number of pitches per inning was the main reason why Flyers head coach Mike Pienkos let him try for what would have been his , before turning it over to reliever Scott Goldberg to get the final out and ultimately the save.

“He was around the zone all day long,” Wilcox said. “As much as that’s good pitching to be around the plate on strike one for him, I think that’s just as bad as we were giving too many first pitch outs and not working counts.”

Truss had stymied the St. Anthony’s offence all day Tuesday on St. Paul’s field in Jericho, allowing only one unearned run to the Friars in the first inning on an error by thirdbaseman Andrew Gallagher.

A contact pitcher, Tuss only allowed five hits and another run to score in the fifth off a combination of a single from Friars DH David Grueneveld and a triple from leftfielder Anthony Gentile.

“He doesn’t walk people,” associate head coach Jack Lyons said of the senior.

Chaminade had their own early struggles against Friars pitcher Taylor Sperin, leaving nine men on base through three, including two situations with the bases loaded.

“I kinda felt early that we were going to get to this kid because we were getting so many guys on base and its just a matter of the ball dropping in,” Piekos said.

A single from Caulfield did just that in the bottom of the fourth, to plate the goahead run in the form of  centerfielder Ryan Hopke. A triple from Gallagher and an error on the shortstop led to three more runs to put the Flyers ahead 4-1 before taking on two more in the fifth including successive successful sacrifices.

“We are constantly on them, every inning offensively and defensively,” Piekos said.

But this is Chaminade – St. Anthony’s we’re talking about; neither one is about to go down willingly, as the Friars made a last attempt in the seventh, plating two thanks to hits from Grueneveld and Costellano before Goldberg made his appearance.

“They didn’t get razzled,” Wilcox said of the Flyers.

But this is what Chaminade has been doing all season – rallying late and scoring big.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E St. Anthony’s 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 4 5 1 Chaminade 0 1 0 3 2 0 0 6 11 3 Chaminade Batting Statistics Player PA AB H 1B 2B 3B SAC BB K RBI Runs BA OB% SLUG SB Michael Ferranti 4 4 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 0 Terrence Connelly 4 3 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 .000 .000 .000 0 Thomas Roulis 4 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 .000 .500 .000 0 Shaun Caufield 4 4 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 .750 .833 .750 0 Andrew Gallagher 3 3 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 2 1 .333 .500 1.000 0 Anthony Portannese (6) 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.000 0 Ryan Vaneck 4 4 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .250 .250 .250 1 Andrew Pohalski 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 .667 .750 .667 0 Joe Duarte 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 Ryan Hopke 3 1 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 .333 .600 .333 0 Chaminade Pitching Statistics IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA Eric Truss (W) 6.2 5 4 3 0 6 0 4.35 Scott Goldberg (S) .1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.00


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