Hamilton High West DH Charlie Geiger had 3 hits on the day in the Hornet’s win over West Windsor-Plainsboro South. Photo by Michael A. Sabo.
By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Apr. 10: Baseball is — stop me if you’ve heard this before – a funny game.
Take Adam Drosos for instance.
He felt he threw much better against Robbinsville on opening day than he did against West Windsor-Plainsboro South Monday. But he was much happier today after it was all said and done.
That’s because Drosos authored a five-inning shutout in Hamilton West’s 10-0, mercy-rule victory over visiting WW-PS, raising the Hornets’ record to 2-2.
Against the Ravens, Drosos allowed one earned run and two hits in a 3-1 loss. Command was an issue against the Pirates as he allowed three walks, a hit batsman and four hits, but the junior right-hander had the pitches when he needed them.
“I felt like I threw better against Robbinsville,” Drosos said. “I was locating everything well, getting a lot of ground balls. Today I wasn’t locating that well. I still did a good job but I would say Robbinsville was better. I’ll still take the result today.”
“He didn’t have his best stuff but he battled through it to keep it at zero,” West coach Mark “Gandhi” Pienciak said. “He got himself a nice double play at one point to get out of trouble. You could clearly tell he wasn’t dialed in with all of his stuff today. But he’s got to give his team a chance to win whether he’s got his stuff or doesn’t have his stuff, and he did that today.”
Drosos, whose uncle Gus is one of the principle players in building the new Atlanta Falcons stadium, allowed the first two Pirates to reach base in each of the first two innings.
In the first, he got the aforementioned 5-4-3 double play and followed with a strikeout to escape trouble. In the second, he got a pop-out, strikeout and fly out to strand a pair.
“That double play gave us so much momentum, it was a great feeling,” Drosos said.
After the hurler kept it scoreless, Hamilton took advantage in the bottom of the second with the only run it needed. Charlie Geiger got the first of his three singles, Jose Rodriguez walked, Tyler Springett sacrificed and Sean Elefant hit a sacrifice fly.
Hamilton broke it open in the third with the kind of rally coach’s love. After starting the inning with two soft pop-outs, Hamilton scored five runs to demoralize the Pirates.
In the fourth, Venutolo had an RBI double and Geiger a run-scoring single to cap a perfect day at the plate.
“He wasn’t even in the lineup the other day against Hopewell,” Pienciak said. “He went out to the University of Pitt for a college visit. We missed his bat in the lineup the other day and you could clearly see why. He’s very comfortable at the plate, his timing is really good. It was a good day for him.”
Geiger wasn’t worried his timing would be off after missing a game.
“Not really,” he said. “I came out here yesterday. We were in the cage, long tossing, I threw some practice time in to get what I missed.”
The win marked the first time this season Hamilton put together all three elements – hitting, pitching and fielding. Pienciak feels the team is still a work in progress as it readies for back-to-back games against Trenton and Nottingham Wednesday and Thursday.
“I think we’ve got to get some guys going, that are a little in between with their timing right now at the plate,” Pienciak said. “We need to get them a little straight. Our defense has been solid and pitching’s been pretty good.”
While Hamilton has kind of flown under the radar in early season forecasting, both coach and players feel the Hornets can surprise some people if they play good baseball.
“We don’t have any D-I studs but we’ve got lot of pitchers who are serviceable that can throw strikes,” Pienciak said. “We don’t have the lineup Steinert can roll out there on any given day but we’ve got guys that can put gritty at-bats together. If we can execute, bunt, do the little things, we’re gonna compete. We’re getting good pitching and playing good defense.”
“I think we can do good,” Drosos said. “Not too many people think we can do it this year but I believe in us.”
“We definitely have a lot of depth this year,” Geiger said. “Last year we had nine key players, but this year we definitely have a lot of kids who can hop in and out. Our first baseman will be determined by what pitcher is throwing each day. I think we have a lot of depth and a lot of competition because of it.”
Lawrence stuns Spartans
Safe to say few people saw this one coming.
After firing on all cylinders in the season’s first week, Steinert carried a 3-1 lead into the top of the seventh inning only to surrender three runs and drop a 4-3 decision to Lawrence.
Chris Cote, Ryan Mostrangeli and Joey Sacco had driven in runs to give the Spartans a 3-1 lead after five innings. But two hits, two errors and a hit batsmen allowed Lawrence (1-1) to mount its winning rally as Steinert fell to 5-1.
Nottingham edges Trenton
Nottingham snapped a two-game losing streak to get back over .500 with a 3-1 victory over Trenton. Nick Houghton and Ron Voacolo combined on a four-hitter. Houghton threw the first six with Voacolo getting the save.
After Trenton took a 1-0 lead in the first, Bryce Fremgen delivered a two-run single in the third to give the Northstars (3-2) a lead they would not relinquish.
David Scott had two hits for Nottingham.
