Wolverines dodge a bases-loaded no-out threat, turn away Buena in South Jersey Group 1 quarterfinals
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
WOODSTOWN – Sometimes the biggest inning in a game isn’t one in which you score. Sometimes it’s the inning you prevent a run from scoring.
Woodstown had one of those kinds of innings Friday in its South Jersey Group 1 quarterfinal game with Buena. The Chiefs had bases loaded and none out in the fifth inning of a close game, but the Wolverines kept them off the scoreboard and by doing so gained an extra bit of momentum to finish off a 5-1 win.
“That was the game ,” Wolverines coach Marc DeCastro said. “It was a giant momentum switch.”
The second-seeded Wolverines (19-8) had been clinging to a 2-0 lead since the first inning when the Chiefs put together their biggest threat of the game. It started with Ricky Beesix and Donato Vai singling off Blake Rodriguez and Richie Wilson getting ahead 2-0 prompting DeCastro to bring in Drew Sutton midcourt.
Sutton completed the walk to Wilson loading the bases. Now it gets weird. Jorge Rios missed the squeeze and the Wolverines caught Beesix in the rundown with the other runners failing to move up behind him. Sutton got Rios to fly out and then catcher Ty Coblentz gunned down Vai trying to steal third.
“That was a weird inning,” Coblentz agreed. “I had a good feeling we were going to get out of that, I did, because (with) Drew on the mound, I knew he could get a strikeout or two and I knew we’d make a play or two. I was very ecstatic in that moment (of the third out). That was the third out that was a big out. It’s almost a tie ballgame at least, could’ve been even worse.”
Sutton carried on for a three-inning save, giving up two hits and an unearned run in the seventh. Even though they might not have been as sharp as usual, pitcher Walker Battavio, Rodriguez and Sutton combined to hold the Chiefs to three hits and struck out five. The Wolverines haven’t given up an earned run in their last three games.
“I only had like five minutes to warmup,” Sutton explained. “I don’t think I’ve really ever done that before. It was kind of weird, but I did good. I just hit my spots.”
The Wolverines took the lead with two runs in the first. The first run scored when the Chiefs threw away Tommy Tucci’s grounder to third. The second scored on Sol Elmer’s RBI single.
It stayed that way until the sixth. Bolstered by the momentum of their fifth-inning escape, the Wolverines scored three insurance runs in the sixth. Lucas Fraley had a two-run double and Tommy Tucci doubled home a run.
The Chiefs scored their run on a single, an error and Wilson’s RBI single.
The Wolverines now host Pennsville in the semifinals Wednesday. They’ve been to the semifinals three years in a row and for the fifth time in the last six years. They eliminated Pennsville from the tournament each of the last two years.
| Buena | 000 | 000 | 1- | 1 | 3 |
| Woodstown | 200 | 003 | x- | 5 | 9 |
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