What a comeback

Salem CC rallies from big early deficit to beat Ocean, sweep Region 19 series

REGION XIX BASEBALL
Tuesday’s Games
Salem CC 14, Ocean 12
Montgomery 6-17, Delaware County 2-1
Camden 14-24, Atlantic Cape 2-6
RCSJ-Gloucester 15, Mercer 10
Raritan Valley 20, Middlesex 11
Brookdale 21, Bucks 0
Bergen 18, Westchester 10
Morris 6, Rockland 5
Sussex 5, Ulster 2

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

CARNEYS POINT – If the Salem CC baseball team makes the Region 19 playoffs this season – and the Mighty Oaks are trending in that direction – they can point to Tuesday’s incredible comeback for getting them there.

The Mighty Oaks staged one of their most memorable in-game turnarounds in coach John Holt’s tenure, rallying from two eight-run deficits with 10 runs in their final three bats to beat Ocean CC 14-12.

They got close with five in the sixth inning and then took the lead with four in the bottom of the eighth. Chase Hortiz drew them even with a two-run single and Jason LeBold gave them the lead with a two-run single with two strikes and two outs.

Logan Peters put the Vikings down in the ninth, facing the tying run at the plate, to complete a courageous 4 2/3 innings relief stint to give the Mighty Oaks the chance to come back and for him to record his first college win.

What made it important? It gave the Mighty Oaks (17-19, 12-10) a sweep of the Region 19 series and an important tiebreaker on the Vikings, who they were two games behind in the region win column entering the series, put them two games over .500 in the region standings and got them within two wins of a .500 overall record.

Teams must be .500 or better either overall or in region play to qualify for the playoffs. Right now, eight of the 13 teams in Region 19 Division II are qualified, and Ocean is not one of them. Two of the four region series the Mighty Oaks have left are against teams ahead of them in the standings, including league-leading No. 2 RCSJ-Gloucester.

“We were tied with them going into the series, last year they had a leg up on us,” LeBold said. “We knew Middlesex was an important series because they took one from them. We wanted the sweep. We were happy with a series win, but the sweep gives us that push over.

“We know if we do tie – we’re planning on beating Camden (this weekend), so we don’t want a tie – but if we do tie, we get that win, so it could be the most important game to get us into the playoffs. I’d rather have three than two.”

The Vikings led 11-3 in the fifth and 12-4 in the sixth as the Mighty Oaks got off to a dreadful start in the field and at the plate, but as LeBold said, “as long as there were still innings to play we were still in it.” The Mighty Oaks scored five runs in the sixth on Aidan Nestor’s RBI double, J.J. Pankowski’s two-run triple and sacrifice flies by Cliff Wysinger and Tyler Hacker. Pankowski singled home another run in the seventh.

“They showed a lot of resilience,” Holt said. “I think they’re starting to become who they can be. It was a pretty big team win. When you have to use your lineup card like that much, you’ve got to be proud of that, that they all contributed.

“We had the conversation last week, going into that Middlesex series, we had to go all Hernan Cortes, we had to burn the boats. They bought in, they’re believing in one another. Top to bottom guys are playing selflessly.”

Colin McLaughlin got the eighth-inning rally started when he reached on an infield throwing error. Jacob Sharrow followed with a single and then Vikings reliever Noah Cullen mishandled Nestor’s bunt to load the bases. Hortiz followed with his game-tying single.

“I was just trying to have a team at bat and get my guys in,” Hortiz said. “We didn’t play to the scoreboard. We just kept fighting. We never lost our energy and it got us all the way back.”

Cullen was on the verge of getting out of it when he retired the next two hitters and had LeBold down to his final strike. But the sophomore outfielder, a difference-maker relegated to DHing by an elbow injury he hopes won’t keep him down long, laced a single to left that easily scored Nestor with the tie-breaking run and Hortiz beat the relay to the plate for an insurance run.

“Nick Reckard came up to me (right before the at-bat) and said, man, you’re going to win the game for us here; that was important to me,” LeBold said. “I was sitting alone, by myself in the corner a little bit, kind of in my head because I hadn’t been hitting that well, and he came up to me and said you’ll be the one to do it for us. That meant a lot and gave me all the confidence. 

“When I went up there I believed in what he said. I took that into the at-bat and it helped me stay in it the whole time. I was down 0-2 at a point and I was thinking about that the whole time, knowing that someone has that much confidence in me.”

The Mighty Oaks showed their ability to rally early in the game when they answered Ocean’s four in the top of the first with three in the bottom of the inning. They would have gotten even more but Ocean left fielder Matt Nuccio robbed Hacker of a homer when he leaped knee-high to the top of the fence and caught the ball going over the wall. There’s a deep divot in the warning track at the base of the fence where Nuccio planted for the leap.

Peters gave the Mighty Oaks every chance to come back with his longest outing of the season. He gave up an inherited run on a sacrifice fly when he came in behind Rocco String in the fifth and gave up a run in the sixth, but he didn’t allow a hit over his final three innings while facing two batters over the minimum.
“It was pure excitement,” he said. “To go out there knowing you can give your team a chance to win and really kind of just shock everybody that’s here. It was nothing but excitement going out there for the last three (outs). Just got out there, threw strikes and gave my team the best chance they can to win. Close it out.”

ACORNS: The bottom half of the Mighty Oaks’ lineup – Sharrow, Nestor, Hortiz and Pankowski – had two hits apiece … Hacker picked up his JUCO D3-leading 41st stolen base in the game, moving him well in range of his goal of 50 … Trevor Hernandez had a two-run single for the Mighty Oaks in the first, but was replaced by Sharrow after getting thrown out at third for the final out of the inning … The three games in the series were decided by a total of four runs … Peters’ previous longest stint was four innings against Surry CC in the last game of the team’s Myrtle Beach trip … The Vikings were playing their eighth game since last April 6.

Ocean CC	410	151	000-	12	10	4
Salem CC	300	015	14x-	14	13	7