Woodstown pitchers have been tough to reach in May, trio shuts down Maple Shade in South Jersey Group I playoff opener
SOUTH JERSEY GROUP I BASEBALL PLAYOFFS
Thursday’s results
No. 1 Audubon 14, No. 16 Camden Academy Charter 3
No. 8 Haddon Twp. 8, No. 9 Buena 1
No. 5 Woodstown 3, No. 12 Maple Shade 1
No. 4 Pennsville 10, No. 13 Gateway 0
No. 6 Schalick 3, No. 11 Paulsboro 1
No. 3 Pitman 13, No. 14 Glassboro 0
No. 7 Wildwood 2, No. 10 Cape May Tech 1
No. 2 Gloucester 16, No. 15 Penns Grove 3
SECOND ROUND (May 29)
Haddon Twp. at Audubon
Woodstown at Pennsville
Schalick at Pitman
Wildwood vs. Gloucester
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
WOODSTOWN – If there is one aspect of his team Woodstown baseball coach Marc DeCastro has been particularly proud of lately it would be the emergence of his pitchers.
They’ve gone from a bunch that had taken their lumps early in a season to becoming quite steady over this last month. Three pitchers combined to hold Maple Shade to three hits and one unearned run Thursday giving the Wolverines a chance to take a 3-1 victory in the opening round of the South Jersey Group I playoffs.
Michael Valente and Jack Knorr gave the Wolverines two innings of no-hit ball on the front and back ends, respectively. Dante Holmes worked the middle three, giving up three hits, a walk, the run and striking out four. Valente retired all six batters he faced to open the game.
The Wolverines have given up two runs or fewer six times in 10 games this month, including each of the last two, going 5-1 in those games. They allowed five runs or more in five of their first eight games of the season, including each of the last four, going 2-3.
“From where we started the season to play a playoff game and throw like we did is great,” DeCastro said. “Because we’ve been able to make some adjustments and become a lot better as a group on the mound as opposed to individually on the mound; that’s kind of how we had to approach some things.
“Early early in the year we were letting up eight plus runs in maybe three of the first five games we played, then we continued on to settle down slightly but we were still getting down early in game and having to come back and whole bunch. We had to alter the way we did things to solidify the ability to get some leads and hold some leads instead of trying to come back on leads.”
All of the game’s runs came in the fourth and fifth innings and the Wolverines never trailed.
They broke a scoreless tie with two runs in the fourth on Rocco String’s solo homer and Caden Spinelli’s two-out RBI single. Maple Shade scored its run in the top of the fifth on an infield error, but the Wolverines got it back on Andrew Pedrick’s sacrifice fly.
Spinelli and Ty Coblentz both had two hits for the Wolverines.
The win sets up a second-round matchup at Pennsville Wednesday.
“We’ve done it before; we played them a couple years ago at our place in the tournament,” DeCastro said. “They’re always one of the better teams in South Jersey, so for the most part if you want to get somewhere you probably have to go through them. That’s just the situation that we’re in. As long as we handle it with some calmness we’ll be fine.”
Riverview Sports News 