Mighty Oaks get caught in toughest 30-minute window of the sundown sky at The Treehouse
REGION XIX BASEBALL
RCSJ-Cumberland 19, Salem CC 2
Ocean 11, Union 1
RCSJ-Gloucester at Atlantic Cape, ppd.
Raritan Valley 14, Morris 10
Northampton at Delaware County, ppd.
Brookdale at Middlesex
Bergen at Montgomery, ppd.
Sussex 13, Lackawanna 7
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
CARNEYS POINT – There’s a reason it’s called a home-field advantage. Playing in your own ballpark provides a confidence you just don’t get playing on the road. The home team knows the way ground balls react in the infield, the best way to run down a fly ball in the outfield, even the way the shadows fall across the grass.
But sometimes even that’s not enough.
The Salem CC outfield lost three balls in the eerie multi-colored backdrop that’s particular to the early evening sky at the Carneys Point Rec Complex in a seventh-inning come-apart that turned Friday night’s 19-2 loss to RCSJ-Cumberland into a rout.
Fly balls hit by the Dukes’ Zack Braig, Kory Jenkins and Christian Willis all got past the Mighty Oaks’ outfielders to keep an eventual nine-run inning going. It would have been easy to think they had lost the balls in the lights, but it wasn’t that at all.
“The way the sky started to look, as soon as the ball got above the trees we lost it right away,” leftfielder Jason LeBold said. “Cliff (Wysinger) said he couldn’t see. Roman (Hernandez) said he couldn’t see. We were trying our hardest to direct each other, but as soon as the ball got in that sky, we couldn’t see a thing.
“There’s like a 30-minute point where you can see well, (then) the sky gets weird, then it gets real dark and you can see well again. We were the unlucky ones in the field during that moment in time.”
It wasn’t the first time the gloaming has given them trouble. It happened in the nightcap of last year’s doubleheader against the Dukes.
“Not as bad (as Friday),” LeBold said, “but we had two balls dropped. They even had some.”
“It was really weird today,” Mighty Oaks coach John Holt said. “It was pink, yellow. I looked at it myself.”
The Dukes carried a 10-2 lead into the seventh after pulling away from a one-run game with four in the fifth inning and three in the sixth. Jenkins hit a two-run homer in the fifth and Malachi Woods had a two-run double in the sixth.
The Mighty Oaks scored their two runs in the third inning on Tyler Hacker’s two-run triple to get within 3-2, but for the most part Dukes right-hander Otley Makosky kept them off-balance. They did collect nine hits, but 15 of their outs were in the infield.
“They shut our offense down,” Holt said. “Their guy (Makosky) did a real good job holding runners over there and we didn’t get enough guys on to get it rolling.
“We just didn’t execute. They executed, we didn’t execute; that’s baseball sometimes. I think we’re better than that score and hopefully tomorrow we can come out and show them that we are.”
The teams play a doubleheader Saturday at Cumberland. Pat Seitzinger (0-3, 8.50) and Sean Bogan (1-1, 7.20) will draw the starts for the Mighty Oaks. Former Schalick pitcher Lucas D’Agostino (1-1, 4.00) is expected to start Game 2 for the Dukes.
ACORNS: LeBold and Hernandez both had a pair of hits for the Mighty Oaks … Hernandez, the right fielder, helped cut down a runner at the plate in the fourth inning (with a relay from second baseman J.J. Pankowski) to keep it a 3-2 game … The loss snapped a season-long five-game winning streak.
| RCSJ-Cumberland (17-3-1) | 030 | 043 | 9- | 19 | 18 | 0 |
| Salem CC (11-14) | 002 | 000 | 0- | 2 | 9 | 4 |
Region XIX Standings
| DIVISION III | R19 | ALL | GSAC |
| RCSJ-Gloucester | 11-1 | 14-4 | 11-1 |
| RCSJ-Cumberland | 9-1 | 17-3-1 | 6-1 |
| Middlesex | 6-1 | 13-5 | 2-0 |
| Northampton | 5-2 | 11-7 | |
| Brookdale | 6-4 | 11-5 | 5-2 |
| SALEM CC | 6-5 | 11-14 | 3-3 |
| Camden | 5-5 | 8-8 | 3-5 |
| Montgomery | 3-4 | 3-4 | |
| Bergen | 4-6 | 5-12 | 4-6 |
| Ocean | 3-6 | 6-9 | 3-6 |
| Atlantic Cape | 2-6 | 2-6 | 2-6 |
| Union | 1-12 | 2-12 | 0-9 |
| Delaware County | 0-8 | 0-8 |
SATURDAY’S GAMES
Salem CC at RCSJ-Cumberland (2)
Atlantic Cape at RCSJ-Gloucester (2)
Delaware County at Northampton (2)
Delaware Tech at Mercer (2)
Lackawanna at Sussex (2)
Morris at Raritan Valley (2)
Montgomery at Bergen (2)
Middlesex at Brookdale (2)
SUNDAY’S GAMES
Raritan Valley at Orange County (2)
Delaware Tech at CCBC Catonsville (2)
Lackawanna at Rockland (2)
Ocean at Union (2)
RCSJ-Gloucester at Atlantic Cape
Riverview Sports News 