Mighty Oaks win another baseball series with doubleheader split, solidly hold onto third in region standings; softball swept by Mercer
REGION 19 BASEBALL
Salem CC 5-8, Middlesex 8-6
Mercer 6-4, Delaware Tech 0-3
RCSJ-Gloucester 20-8, Montgomery 2-7
RCSJ-Cumberland 4-12, Northampton 3-3
Brookdale 12, Bergen 1
Camden 14-13, Delaware County 2-6
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
CARNEYS POINT — A wise young philosopher named after a comfort food once proclaimed to the world that two out of three ain’t bad. For baseball teams that aspire to contend for a championship in one of the toughest leagues on their level in the country that’s really not a bad formula to follow.
Salem CC won Game 2 of Saturday’s Region 19 doubleheader with No. 11 Middlesex 8-6 to split the twinbill and take two of three in the weekend series. It’s the fourth straight region series the Mighty Oaks have won this season and second in a row they’ve followed Meat Loaf’s lead and taken two out of three by winning the Saturday nightcap.
Like the man said, ain’t bad. The Mighty Oaks (14-16, 10-5) are now third in the Region 19 Division III standings behind two top 10 rivals with a mid-week home-and-home against No. 4 Northampton on the horizon.
“One of the goals for the year was to get into the polls, that we felt we were a team that was good enough to get some national recognition,” Mighty Oaks coach John Holt said. “Winning two out of three against a team like (Middlesex) hopefully gets us that.
“The goal is to win it, try to win a conference (title) or win the region. Two out of three every weekend gets us closer to that.”
On top of sweeping the teams they should be beating, of course, and they’ve done that, too, this season.
The Mighty Oaks were a lot sharper in Game 2 than they were in the losing the opener 8-5 against 6-foot-7 Colts righthander Ryan Rzepinski.
They led the nightcap 6-3 before the Colts tied it on Josh Rodriguez’ three-run double in the fifth. Tyler Hacker broke the tie in the bottom of the inning when he scored from second on a wild pitch and the catcher’s throw to get him at third went down the line. Hacker started the inning with a seeing-eye single through the infield and advanced to second on a wild pitch.
“When you go up to warmup in the beginning of the inning you look to see what the pitcher’s doing, feel him out, and a lot of the balls he was spiking,” Hacker said. “In my AB he spiked a lot of balls so (on the bases) I was looking for the ball down and took advantage.
“When you’re playing for your team, doing the right thing, runs like that happen. Things like that happen.”
Sean McCormick kept the Colts at bay with another solid relief appearance. Last Saturday he struck out the side in order in the top of the eighth to give the Mighty Oaks a chance to beat Montgomery in the bottom of the inning. This week, he put the fire out in the sixth by striking out the first batter he faced after relieving starter Pat Seitzinger on three 85-86 mph pitches and closed it out with only a little drama in the seventh.
“It’s definitely stressful dealing with the fact one wrong move they win the game or they get the lead,” McCormick said. “But as coach Holt tells me every time I go out don’t be scared, trust your stuff, go how you throw and you’ll be okay. You have to trust your stuff.”
Demetrius DeRamus homered in each game for the Mighty Oaks. Both blasts led off innings. The one in the nightcap, with an angry swing in the sixth inning after going hitless in his previous three at-bats, gave them an 8-6 lead.
It went out in left and looked to be even deeper than the two-run shot he hit in the 11th inning to tie the RCSJ-Cumberland nightcap before they won it in the 12th.
“Just trying to hit something hard as I could,” he said. “I was literally working on the tee with Yen (Rodriguez) right before the game on that very pitch, the inside pitch. I’ve been getting hung up a lot, tight inside or I’m just missing it and coming a little above the ball, so we were working on trying to get down, trying to stay tight.”
ACORNS: McCormick also starts and is being considered for the Wednesday assignment against Northampton. As a starter he’s 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA, as a reliever 2-1 with a 6.94. “Seth is Seth,” Holt said. “He’s going to do a little bit of everything” … First baseman Lee Rodriguez suffered a painful hamstring injury stretching for a throw in the first game. Several of the players went out to check on him and assist him to the trainer’s tent and Holt was impressed with the way they attended to their teammate. McCormick went in for him … Matt Murphy followed his big game in the opener by going 3-for-5 with two RBIs in the doubleheader. He reached base in seven of his eight plate appearances and the one time he didn’t he still drove in a run.
| REGION 19 DIVISION III | REG | ALL |
| RCSJ-Gloucester | 16-0 | 27-2 |
| Brookdale | 14-3 | 21-4 |
| SALEM CC | 10-5 | 14-16 |
| Camden | 10-5 | 17-7 |
| Middlesex | 10-7 | 22-12 |
| RCSJ-Cumberland | 9-7 | 15-12 |
| Northampton | 9-8 | 15-13 |
| Montgomery | 8-8 | 8-8 |
| Union | 4-12 | 7-14 |
| Ocean | 3-10 | 5-16 |
| Bergen | 1-12 | 3-18 |
| Delaware County | 0-16 | 1-20-1 |
Softball: Big innings, HRs
do in Mighty Oaks
REGION 19 SOFTBALL
Mercer 11-14, Salem CC 8-5
Delaware Tech 9-9, Lackawanna 1-0
RCSJ-Gloucester 7-6, Northampton 6-5
PENNSVILLE – Once-beaten Mercer CC used a seven-run inning in each game and the long ball in the nightcap to sweep the Mighty Oaks 11-8 and 14-5.
The Vikings (17-1) scored seven runs in the second inning of the opener and led 10-0 after batting in the third, then held off Salem’s comeback bid. They scored seven in the fifth inning of the nightcap and scored 10 runs in the final two innings to complete the sweep.
The Mighty Oaks cut their Game 1 deficit in half with five runs in the home third, highlighted by Jocelyn Melendez’ two-run single. They added two more in the sixth on Chantelle Haskie’s RBI single and Bella Rappa’s sacrifice fly.
They continued to apply pressure and had the tying run at the plate twice in the seventh inning, but ended up getting only one run out of it.
Ella Hayes had three hits in the game for Salem. Melendez and Val Hatterer each had two.
Mercer hit four home runs in the nightcap, two by Emily Wyzykowski.
The Vikings scored four runs in the first on Kelci O’Dell’s leadoff homer and Wyzykowski’s three-run shot. Stella Logan’s three-run homer in the fourth gave them the lead for good and Wyzykowski hit a two-run homer in their seven-run fifth.
The Mighty Oaks bounced back after Mercer’s opening salvo and took a 5-4 lead after three innings. They got two in the first on RBI singles by Tiana Wilson and Callie Rozak, one in the second on Hayes’ sacrifice fly and two in the third on Hatterer’s squeeze bunt and Haskie’s go-ahead RBI single.
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