Jake Muller goes yard in the 9th inning against Gloucester Catholic. Photo by Amanda “The Homeowner” Ruch.
By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Apr. 29: If Steinert’s baseball team is going to make deep runs in the state and county tournaments, Dave Stec knows he is going to have to be a big part of that.
The senior right-hander showed on Saturday that he’s ready for the challenge.
Although he got a no-decision in Steinert’s 5-4, nine-inning loss to visiting Gloucester Catholic, Stec pitched a solid seven innings against a lineup that has five Division I players and is hitting .444 as a team.
In a battle that felt like a tournament game, the 6-foot-5 bearded one allowed three runs, seven hits, one walk and three hit batsmen while striking out four. Much like teammate Ryan Meszaros one day early, Stec had excellent command as 65 of his 93 pitches were for strikes.
“Coming into this game I definitely wanted to pound the zone, force them to swing the bats,” Stec said. “You don’t want to give these guys anything or they’ll take advantage of it. I think Drayven (Kowalski, catcher), coach Rick (Freeman) and myself did a great job of limiting that.”
The one catch is, Gloucester Catholic batters can hit strikes, as witnessed by three batters hitting .500 or better and two more hitting over .400. The guy with the lowest average (.325) was Evan Giordano, and all he did was hit a two-run homer to give Gloucester Catholic a 2-1 lead.
“Stec did a great job,” head coach Brian Giallella said. “That’s exactly what it’s about. You want to go out and win, we all know that. But this is definitely a game we take a lot of positives from.”
The game has become an annual showdown between two of the state’s traditional powers. Gloucester Catholic is now 12-0 and ranked No. 1 in virtually every South Jersey poll, while Steinert slipped to 14-2 and had a nine-game winning streak snapped.
The Rams had actually dropped games to the Spartans each of the last two seasons and coach Adam Jussey, who played for Rider and The College of New Jersey, couldn’t wait to do it again.
“This was a big game for us,” Jussey said. “Before the season even started, when we scheduled this one we knew this was gonna be a big one. There’s always a great program at Steinert, we’re fortunate to play these guys every year. It’s a great little rivalry. They have an excellent coach and an excellent team. This is a really quality win for our team.”
Steinert grabbed a 1-0 lead in the second when Jake Muller doubled, got to third on Brendan James’ single and scored on Tommy Blackwell’s sacrifice fly. GC responded with three in the third as Adam Bonomo followed Giordano’s home with a double and eventually scored on a ground out.
The Spartans got one back in the third when Joey Sacco walked, advanced on two wild pitches and scored on CJ Pittaro’s single. Steinert caught a break in the fifth when reliever Andrew Vail entered, walked Chris Cote and Ryan Mostrangeli and allowed Cote to score on an errant pickoff to third.
The reliever settled in after that, retiring 12 straight and picking up the win.
After Gloucester Catholic got two in the top of the ninth, Muller cut it to 5-4 with a homer and Kowalski followed with a bunt single. But courtesy runner Brady Plunkett was caught stealing and a strikeout ended a classic battle from which Steinert emerged a better team.
“They want to play us, we want to play them,” Giallella said. “There’s a chess match going back and forth. We both have quality players and programs, that’s the main thing. The experience is going to help us. We want quality competition. I don’t want to schedule out of conference games that are easy ones.”
Stec felt the game helped both the team, and himself.
“I thought this was a great game,” the hurler said. “We both played well. We came into this game knowing it would be very tough. The past two years were tough wins for us, and even though we lost this year it was very good.
“And I think this definitely helps me a lot, getting experience against an excellent lineup. Going forward now I’m really secure that I can do anything against anybody.”
Which is exactly what Steinert is counting on.
