Former Schalick pitcher beats Salem CC in nightcap to give Dukes DH split, series win; Mighty Oaks’ Seitzinger goes distance in opener for first win

REGION XIX BASEBALL
Salem CC 7-3, RCSJ-Cumberland 1-8
RCSJ-Gloucester 10-19, Atlantic Cape 1-5
Northampton 12-12, Delaware County 9-1
Mercer 12-14, Delaware Tech 5-0
Sussex 6-10, Lackawanna 5-9
Morris at Raritan Valley
Montgomery 17-13, Bergen 7-1
Middlesex 15-6, Brookdale 13-3

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

VINELAND – When Lucas D’Agostino pitched at Schalick he used to relish the opportunities to go against the other teams in the county. Now that he’s in college, he was just as stoked to go against the junior college team from his county – and in a pretty big situation.

D’Agostino drew the start for RCSJ-Cumberland in Game 2 of Saturday’s doubleheader with Salem CC and tasked with closing out weekend series. He answered the call, going six innings and the Dukes beat the Mighty Oaks 8-3 to split the twinbill after Salem won the opener 7-1 and win the three-game Region 19 series.

The freshman right-hander threw 113 pitches in his second-longest outing of the year, giving up four hits, two unearned runs and striking out a career-tying eight for his second win of the season. He gave up a run in the first and one in the sixth. After the first run, he allowed only two runners to reach scoring position over the next three innings and got out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth with an inning-ending strikeout.

“It was cold, it was a little rough to start, but I ended up putting pitches where I wanted them and got lucky a couple times,” he said. “I laid a couple pitches in there that probably should’ve been hit pretty well, but other than that I feel like I hit my spots pretty well and kept them a little off-balanced, too.”

The Mighty Oaks reached him for a run in the first when he hit Jason LeBold, LeBold stole second and scored on Tyler Hacker’s single. But he wasn’t too concerned. His teammates rolled out the bats like he hoped in the bottom of the inning and gave him the lead to protect the rest of the game.

The Dukes put five up in the bottom of the inning off Salem starter Seth Bogan. Cole Shover scored on a wild pitch, Tyler Schoppe drilled a three-run homer and Nolan Murawski later delivered an RBI single.

Schoppe have five RBIs in the nightcap, Stover scored three runs and Kory Jenkins went 3-for-4 to complete a 7-for-11 series.

“Our offense battled back and put up a five spot in the bottom of the first to kind of set the tone,” D’Agostino said. “I thought that was a very big part of the game.

“The cold was tough today, but I think we battled and we locked in mentally for Game 2. Game 1 got out of our hands a little bit, but it was very impressive with my offense to get beat a little bit and then come back and set the tone for the next game.”

They gave D’Agostino two more runs to work with in the second on a bases-loaded walk to Schoppe and Chase Montgomery’s RBI single, and another in the third on another bases-loaded walk to Schoppe.

Salem won the opener to square the series behind a 114-pitch complete game from sophomore Pat Seitzinger and sophomore Jay Barber’s first college homer.

Seitzinger gave up five hits, walked seven and struck out two to earn his first win of the season and lower his ERA to 6.23. The only run he allowed was Chase Montgomery’s one-out homer in the second.

The Mighty Oaks answered the blast with two runs in the third to take the lead. Cliff Wysinger tied the game with an RBI double and J.J. Pankowski scored the go-ahead run from third when he beat the throw home on Tyler Hacker’s grounder to short.

They extended the lead with three in the sixth on Colin McLaughlin’s RBI single, a run-scoring error and Pankowski’s sacrifice fly. Barber’s homer in the seventh brought the final margin.

Barber, Wysinger and Roman Hernandez all had two hits in the game.

Region XIX Baseball Standings

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. 

Region XIX Standings

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

Salem CC scores double-digit runs in both games of doubleheader sweep of Atlantic Cape, Hacker hits for cycle in Game 1

REGION XIX BASEBALL
Saturday’s Games
Salem CC 13-15, Atlantic Cape 7-5
RCSJ-Cumberland 20-21, Delaware County 0-9
Monroe Bronx 14-5, Middlesex 10-7
Delaware Tech 12-2, Morris 0-3
RCSJ-Gloucester 16-21, Union 1-0
Mercer 8-0, Sussex 7-4

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

CARNEYS POINT – The Salem CC baseball players were scattered in the outfield and the bullpen area stretching, playing catch, doing whatever it is players do before getting down to the serious business of the day. Above the chatter, one player leaned against the fence and, speaking to no one in particular, opined the Mighty Oaks needed to score runs in the forthcoming doubleheader because they sensed they were lagging behind the competition it that department.

The Mighty Oaks made a major move in closing that gap Saturday, scoring double-digit runs in both games of their 13-7, 15-5 sweep of Atlantic Cape to sweep their three-game weekend series.

Despite a lineup capable of producing numbers like they did Saturday on a regular basis, the Mighty Oaks entered the day with 122 runs in 20 games, 20th nationally and fourth in Region XIX. They had scored 10 runs or more five times, including Friday’s series single game, but they’ve also been held to three runs or fewer eight times, including five of the last six games on their recent Myrtle Beach trip.

“We dropped some games that we should win and we came into warmups with (the approach) we have to do good,” sophomore first baseman Tyler Hacker said. “In our I-O we were solid, we were ready to go. (Against) a team like this you want to put as many as you can on the board, execute, play some baseball, work on things as well.

“Yesterday we should have ended the game a lot sooner and I think that’s why we’re saying we’re lagging a little bit. Some of the guys are getting too happy, kind of like I did in my AB. I can see how that happens, but we got the job done at the end of the day.”

The Mighty Oaks (9-13) banged out a season-high 15 hits in each game against the Buccaneers (2-6) Saturday. Coach John Holt said the offense is “getting there,” but “not quite where we need to be yet,” a nod to sharpening parts of their approach at the plate.

The first game was highlighted by Hacker hitting for the cycle for the first time since Little League. He had an RBI single in the first, an RBI double in the second, a solo homer in the fourth and, after flying out to center in his first attempt to complete the feat in the fifth inning, made it happen with a leadoff triple in the seventh.

“I was actually just telling my guys I hit for the cycle before, but in Little League, doesn’t really count, so this is my first real cycle,” he said between games. “I was 12 years old in Lake Mary (Fla.) Little League. I didn’t even know because I was 12. My grandpa told me. He said you had a good game, you hit for the cycle. Do you know what that means? I was like no. He was like, that’s pretty rare. I was like, all right.”

It’s the first cycle Holt can remember in his eight years with the Mighty Oaks, and even though he needed the hardest part of it in his last at-bat Hacker was going for it when he came to the plate in the seventh.

“As soon as I hit it, I don’t know if you heard it, but somebody said like, ‘that’s it,’” he said. “I told coach if it’s close I’m going for it. (The previous at bat) I got the pitch I wanted, but I got a little happy and took it off the end, so I made sure if I got up again I was going to take it the other way.”

Early in the game it was a race to see who might get the cycle first. Rocco String had an RBI double and RBI triple in his first two at-bats before being collared in his last three at bats.

“I was rooting for him,” Hacker said. “Two good-hit balls. He’s got more home runs than I do, so (it’s) more probable for him. It’d been just as cool if he did it. When I came in he congratulated me. There’s competitiveness there, but we’re all rooting for each other.”

The Mighty Oaks were even more prolific in the nightcap. Every spot in the lineup scored at least one run and seven starters had at least one RBI.

The highlight was Louie Rivera’s first three college hits after an 0-for-10 start. His leadoff double that started a six-run second inning was his first hit since his sophomore year in high school. He actually had two hits in the inning, delivering a two-run single once the Mighty Oaks batted around. He also had an RBI single in the fifth.

“I talked about (the oh-for) with my family and told them it sucks not having a hit, but my goal is to just put the ball in play as much as I can,” the redshirt freshman transfer from West Virginia Wesleyan said. “I knew if I kept putting it in play I was going to reach first at some point.

“I had three strikeouts last time I played (March 15 vs. Surry in Myrtle Beach), which was my worst day. I don’t want to strike out anymore. I struck out once today, but that was later in the game, but at the end of the day in my point of view every time I’m at the plate my mindset is the battle’s been won (through his faith) so I’m just trying to have fun up there.”

Jason LeBold went 4-for-4 with three RBIs and reached base all six times he batted in the nightcap. He went 3-for-4 in the opener and reached base in four of his five plate appearances. He’s now batting .413 for the season thanks to a 10-mph increase in bat speed, being healthy and the confidence that comes with batting in a type lineup the Mighty Oaks have built. Holt called him a “difference maker.”

“It’s fun playing with a lineup that you can trust if I get out,” LeBold said. “I’m batting behind the best hitter almost in the country, Tyler Hacker. If I get out I know I’ve got someone to back me up. It’s a lineup that I can trust. It’s a lot easier to hit that way when you don’t feel like there’s pressure on you.”