Schalick sophomore right-hander throws masterful complete-game in longest outing of his career, likely to start in Cougars’ playoff opener; Woodstown pair no-hits Pitman; includes SJ baseball playoff pairings

TUESDAY BASEBALL
Schalick 12, Pennsville 3
Woodstown 8, Pitman 0
Clayton at Penns Grove
Gloucester at Salem Tech
Salem at Glassboro

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

PITTSGROVE – Matt Karr flat-out said Schalick pitcher Mason Sanchez played truth or dare with his Pennsville hitters Tuesday afternoon.

The sophomore right-hander threw it up there, dared the Eagles to hit it and the truth was they never did, or simply couldn’t.

The Cougars’ projected first-round playoff starter looked like a righthander version of another pitcher named Sanchez in the Philadelphia market – Phillies’ left-hander Christopher Sanchez – especially in the late innings of a masterful 12-3 complete-game victory over the Eagles,

“That’s what they call me in school, actually,” the slender sophomore said with a smile.

The Schalick Sanchez, who still plays Little League baseball and is proud of it, allowed just three hits, no earned runs, walked one and struck out three. He was especially sharp late in the game, retiring the last 15 batters he faced after throwing away Mason O’Brien’s bunt single leading off the third inning. He threw 94 pitches, 64 for strikes.

“We got our butts kicked – period,” Karr said. “He threw well, shoved it. Threw the ball right down the middle and played truth or dare. Said I dare you to hit it and we couldn’t. Just an absolute, awful, poor, no effort. It’s just … embarrassing.”

It was the longest outing of Sanchez’ career and clearly the most effective. He had never gone more than three innings in any outing before. The Cougars are 7-3 in the games he pitches.

“I was thinking before the season even started what do I want to be this season, a starter, reliever, a starter, reliever,” the pitcher said. “They’ve been talking about it and now we decided on starter. My goal coming into this game was to get at least three strikeouts and keep it under four hits, because that’s just my goal for every game. I’m not a big guy who goes up there and strikes everybody out like Jamari (Whitley) and Cole (Hartley). I’m a guy who goes up there and tries to (get them to) hit the ball. I know my defense is really good, the guys behind me.”

“I wanted him to challenge them,” Schalick coach Sean O’Brien said. “We don’t want to walk guys. You saw what happened yesterday where we give free passes and teams will hurt you. Limit the walks and challenge guys to give you weak contact is kind of what we want to do. He did that, embraced that, and did a great job. If you compete and you’re not walking guys ,hitters are going to get themselves out. You just make the right pitch and you just have to trust your fielders behind you to make the plays and he did a good job doing that today.”

Offensively, it was a complete 180 from what both teams experienced the day before. Pennsville kept the meter running and crushed Penns Grove 28-8, while Schalick was lethargic in a 13-5 loss to Haddon Heights.

The Cougars (17-7) answered Pennsville both times the Eagles (14-9) scored in the first three innings. They finally took the lead for good on Jamari Whitley’s two-run single in the fourth, then broke it open with seven in the fifth on a combination of hard-hit balls, soft or seeing-eye liners and poor Pennsville defense. Ricky Watt had a chance to walk it off with his 100th career hit in the sixth, but flew out to center for the final out of the inning and leave him sitting on 99.

Five Cougars had at least two hits in the game. Evan Glaspey had three hits and three RBIs.

“The good thing about having a bad game and then you get to play the next day is then you can kind of quickly forget about the day before,” O’Brien said. “We did a good job of settling into the game, Mason did a good job settling into the game. We started a little slow, we were making some errors behind him, but we picked it up there and then offensively we finally started to pick things up. One through nine we were hitting the ball hard and we didn’t do that consistently yesterday.

“I just want our guys to just be playing good baseball when next week comes around. Playing good teams and beating good teams is playing good baseball. I think that helps us going forward.”

WOODSTOWN 8, PITMAN 0: Blake Rodriguez and Stone Hassler combined on a seven-inning no-hitter, facing the minimum 21 batters. The only base runner they allowed was a third-inning walk to Payton Miller by Rodriguez and Miller was erased on a double play.

Rodriguez worked the first 5 2/3 innings, coming out after 73 pitches. Hassler threw 16 pitches to get the final four outs.

The Wolverines took control of this one early, scoring four runs in the first inning. Luke Fraley had two hits and two RBIs. Drew Sutton and Sol Elmer also had a pair of hits. Tommy Tucci went 1-for-3 to collect his 50th career hit and Ty Coblentz went 1-for-4 to move within nine of 100.

SOUTH JERSEY GROUP I PLAYOFFS
Wednesday’s First-Round Games
(16) Cape May Tech at (1) Schalick
(9) Gateway at (8) Audubon
(12) Paulsboro at (5) Wildwood, Tuesday
(13) Riverside at (4) Maple Shade
(14) LEAP at (3) Haddon Twp.
(11) Pitman at (6) Pennsville
(10) Buena at (7) Glassboro, 2 p.m.
(15) Clayton at (2) Woodstown

SOUTH JERSEY GROUP 2 PLAYOFFS
Wednesday’s First-Round Games
(16) Collingswood at (1) Haddonfield
(9) Manchester Twp. at (8) Middle Twp.
(12) Lower Cape May at (5) Seneca
(13) Gloucester at (4) Sterling
(14) Pleasantville at (3) Cedar Creek
(11) Medford Tech at (6) West Deptford
(10) Salem Tech at (7) Barnegat, 3:45 p.m.
(15) Mastery Camden at (2) Haddon Heights