SOL National/BAL defeated Jersey Shore 6-0 in Monday’s Carpenter Cup opener. Head to the Suburban One Sports baseball gallery to see Keith Clemens’ photos of Monday’s action...CLICK HERE.
SOL National/BAL opens Carpenter Cup with 6-0 win over Jersey Shore
By Jarrad Saffren
Good pitching beats good hitting, right? Or does good pitching create bad hitting? That’s more accurate.
Now that we have started with a philosophical discussion about baseball’s oldest, simplest, truest cliche, put this one on the cliche application pile: Good pitching and good defense eliminate hitting altogether.
That’s what happened Monday afternoon in FDR Park in Philadelphia.
Suburban One League National Conference/Bicentennial Athletic League beat Jersey Shore 6-0 in the 2016 Carpenter Cup first round.
Five SOL National/BAL pitchers—Neshaminy’s Billy Meyer, Christopher Dock’s Daniel Sabath, Abington’s Greg Troyer, Pennsbury’s Billy Bethel, and Council Rock North’s CJ Kilgarriff—gave up four hits and three walks.
Meyer gave up two walks in the top of the first. But he got the last batter to swing under a first-pitch fastball and fly out to center.
“I was just focusing on velocity,” Meyer said. “But I realized that’s not the best thing to do.”
The inning started a trend: SOL National/BAL hurlers hitting spots with men on base.
Pitchers can only go three innings in the Carpenter Cup. So Sabath replaced Meyer in the top of the fourth. Jersey Shore moved a runner into scoring position in all three innings against Sabath.
Johnny Zega tripled to start the fourth. Then Sabath forced a groundout and two line-outs. All three batters hit inside fastballs with the thin parts of their bats.
Jersey Shore had men on first and second with two outs in the fifth. But Doug Facendo reached for an outside fastball and hit the ball right to centerfielder Shaun Stackhouse.
Michael Nyisztor slammed a one-out triple in the sixth. Sabath struck out the next batter swinging at a heater. The last batter flew out to deep center.
“Two great performances from Meyer and Sabath. Six innings,” SOL National/BAL co-coach Joe Pesci said. “They made the right pitches in the right counts in big situations.”
Pesci’s plan was to use Meyer and Sabath for three innings. Once that worked, Pesci and co-coach Dave Torresani improvised.
“We pieced it together from there,” Pesci said. “Troyer could have gone more. Bethel could have gone more. And Kilgarriff could have gone more. But we wanted to get guys in. It’s a showcase tournament.”
Troyer got three outs on five pitches in the seventh. Bethel got three outs on four pitches in the eighth.
“Up 6-0, you throw to contact,” Bethel said. “Throw strikes, get outs, end the game quicker.”
“Yeah, you don’t work around batters,” Troyer said. “Just attack early.”
“We joke that Bethel’s not going to blow it past you,” Pesci, who coaches Bethel at Pennsbury, said. “But he has good off-speed pitches. He has a very good curveball he throws in any count. He’s a smart pitcher and a good talent.”
Kilgarriff reprised the closer role he played so well for CR North in 2016. It was not a save situation, but Kilgarriff still did his one baserunner-just-to-play-with-teams routine.
He struck out the first batter, jammed the second into flying out to left, and allowed a two-out double. Then he got the last batter to line out to right.
Dock’s Rashid Saint-Fleur squeezed the ball in his glove, his third put-out in two innings. Saint-Fleur made a running catch and a leaping snow-cone grab in the eighth.
“Our fielders made all the plays,” Kilgarriff said.
SOL National/BAL did not make an error. Stackhouse ran down ball after ball in center. His Council Rock South teammate—shortstop Josh Kim—played third and made three charging, sidearm, highlight-reel plays in the third and fourth.
Abington’s Aidan Coyle dove to stop one ball in the hole on the right side. A play that prompted a fan, quite likely his mother, to shout, “Wow!”
“We had good defense and great pitching,” Pesci said. “No errors, three walks in nine innings is pretty good.”
Even the best pitching and defense needs a run.
SOL National/BAL scored five of its six runs in the second and third.
In the second, North’s Seth Leuz walked, took second on a passed ball, stole third, and scored on a wild pitch. MaST Charter’s Matt Carter scored the second run. Stackhouse chopped the ball to short. Jersey Shore’s shortstop sailed the ball over the first baseman’s head.
In the third, Leuz hit an RBI single up the middle. Carter stroked an RBI double off the right-centerfield fence. And Abington’s Paul Poppert lifted a sacrifice fly to short right.
SOL National/BAL’s 4-7 hitters had two hits, three walks, and four runs scored. Leuz went 1-for-2 with a walk, an RBI, two runs, and two steals.
Pesci’s team also beat Jersey Shore in the 2015 Carpenter Cup championship game. SOL National/BAL has won five straight cup games.
SOL National/BAL (1-0, Carpenter Cup) takes on Olympic/Colonial in a quarterfinal Friday at 9 a.m. The quarterfinals are also in FDR Park. The winners move on to the semifinals at Citizens Bank Park, home of the local professional baseball team.
Suburban One National/Bicentennial 6, Jersey Shore 0
Suburban One National/Bicentennial: Josh Kim 3b 2-0-0-0, Ryan McCarty 3b 2-0-0-0, Cory Joyce dh 2-1-0-0, Paul McElroy dh 2-0-0-0, Tony Gallo lf 3-0-0-0, Owen Foraker lf 1-0-0-0, Seth Leuz rf 2-2-1-1, Rashin Saint-Fleur rf 1-0-0-0, Tim DiLoreto c 1-1-0-0, Justin Yerkes ph/c 2-0-0-0, Matt Carter ss 1-1-1-1, Justin Massielo ph/ss 0-1-0-0, Paul Poppert 1b 1-0-0-1, Greg Delgado ph/1b 2-0-0-0, Shaun Stackhouse cf 2-0-0-0, Tyrone Hodges Jr ph/cf 2-0-1-0, Aidan Coyle 2b 1-0-0-0, Cavan Tully ph/2b 1-0-0-0, Billy Meyer p 0-0-0-0, Daniel Sabath p 0-0-0-0, Greg Troyer p 0-0-0-0, Billy Bethel p 0-0-0-0, CJ Kilgarriff p 0-0-0-0, TOTALS 28-6-3-3
Jersey Shore: Mike Antico cf 3-0-1-0, John Prato cf 1-0-0-0, Brian Kochenash 2b 2-0-0-0, Ben Montenegro 3b 1-0-0-0, Johnny Zega ss 2-0-1-0, Evan Madigan ss 2-0-0-0, Ciaran Devenney c 1-0-0-0, Michael Nyisztor 2b 2-0-1-0, Austin Markmann 3b 2-0-0-0, Nicholas Hohenstein rf 2-0-0-0, Doug Facendo dh 2-0-0-0, Tom Ruscitti dh 2-0-1-0, Kenny Campbell rf 2-0-0-0, Gene Napolitano c 2-0-0-0, John Martin 1b 2-0-0-0, Trevor Wagner 1b 1-0-0-0, Brenden Hueth lf 1-0-0-0, Dom Caraballo lf 1-0-0-0, Dan Chiusano p 0-0-0-0, Justin Fall p 0-0-0-0; Brendan Mullins p 0-0-0-0, Matt Yard p 0-0-0-0, Phil DeMarco p 0-0-0-0, Mario Ferraioli p 0-0-0-0, TOTALS 31-0-4-0
SOL National/BAL 023 001 000 6-3-0
Jersey Shore 000 000 000 0-4-3
E-Jersey Shore 3. DP-Jersey Shore 1. LOB-SOL N/B 5, Jersey Shore 7. 2B-M. Carter, T. Ruscitti. 3B-J. Zega, M. Nyisztor. SF-P.Poppert. SB-C. Joyce, S. Leuz 3, M Carter, J. Massielo, C. Tully.
SOL National/Bicentennial IP H R ER BB SO
Billy Meyer (2) 3.0 0 0 0 2 2
Daniel Sabath 3.0 3 0 0 1 2
Greg Troyer 1.0 0 0 0 0 0
Billy Bethel 1.0 0 0 0 0 0
CJ Kilgarriff 1.0 1 0 0 0 1
Jersey Shore
Dan Chiusano (L) 2.0 0 2 1 2 2
Justin Fall 2.0 2 3 3 3 0
Brendan Mullins 2.0 1 1 1 1 2
Matt Yard 1.0 0 0 0 0 1
Phil DeMarco 1.0 0 0 0 1 0
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