By MATTHEW MECKLEY – Finger Lakes Times
NEWARK — A small chance of rain may have been in Tuesday’s forecast, but thankfully it was nothing but blue skies at Colburn Park for the start of the game between Geneva and Newark, which the Red Wings won 5-4.
“This is a good victory for us,” Geneva coach Dan Shwan said. “They (Newark) swing it real well. To beat them and beat them here, that’s a good win for us.”
Lead off hitter Brainy Rojas caught a break as he popped it up near home plate. Pilots catcher Ty Syta dropped a sure out, followed by a Logan Stirr throwing error allowed Rojas to advance to third. Noah Fisher brought Rojas home on the next at bat with an RBI single.
“I just went up with the same approach,” Rojas said. “I like to look for something that I like to hit and I just went from there.”
Livonia’s Ron Loomis struckout two batters to escape the inning, part of his five inning night.
Counterpart Parker Askegreen struckout three batters to retire the first inning, part of his seven strikeout performance that lasted six innings. Askegreen allowed nine hits and three runs.
It continued to be a pitchers’ duel until the bottom of the third inning when Stirr cracked a two-run RBI single that allowed David Bermudez and Parker Denny to put the home team up by a run.
Geneva would tie the game back up in the top of the fifth as Harrison Treble scored off a Fisher sac-fly.
The visitors then caught another break in the top of the seventh as Daniel Sperling scored on a pass ball. The Red Wings expanded their lead shortly after as Rojas drilled a two run home that hit the scoreboard in left field.
“I was just glad,” Rojas said in reference to his first home run of the season. “It felt great!”
“He did a good job tonight,” Shwam said in reference to Rojas’ play. “The home run was big for us, we needed to get a knock out punch there. We needed to open the gap a little bit.”
Newark inched their way back into the game in the bottom of the seventh as St. John Fisher standout Allen Murphy hit a well placed ball down the third baseline which brought in Kameron Reynolds.
The Pilots had a golden opportunity to score more runs as Stirr was at the plate in a bases loaded situation, however Jacob Land was able to strike him out to on a full count to retire the inning.
Newark made it a one run game in the bottom of the eighth as designated hitter Over Torres cracked an RBI double into deep center field that allowed Syta to score.
Lefty Maxwell Barsamian preserved the win for the Red Wings as he struckout two of the four batters he faced.
With the win, Geneva improves to 8-4 and will return home to McDonough Park Thursday night as they face Adirondack.
Meanwhile, Newark drops to 4-6 and will travel to Elmira to face the Pioneers.
“We just got to come out with the same mindset as we did tonight,” Shwam added. “We just have to play good, consistent baseball. We’ve played inconsistent defensively. If we cut down on our errors and pitched like we did tonight, we’ll be fine.”
Commentaires