Dominant pitching and an explosive offense
were the true trademarks of the Chester Hambletonians varsity baseball team last
week as they swept the Tri-Valley Bears in three games played at both Chester
and Grahamsville.
Chester coach Mike Doucette at the conclusion of the
three-game series said, "our goal was to go 3-0 this week because S.S. Seward
(Florida) has not lost and we go 2-1 next week with Tuxedo and 2-1 the
following week with Seward then we can win the division outright."
In discussing the Hambletonians pitching Doucette noted,
"when you have a guy that throws a perfect game and another guy that almost
throws a perfect game my initial thinking before the start of the season was
that Michael Coffey was my number one pitcher but Ryan Cabrera (had the no
hitter against Eldred) has really stepped up and now it's like like having a one
and a one-A."
In last Thursday's game at Tri-Valley Chester senior Zack
Krawczyk struck out 10 Bears batters in seven innings of pitching. In his
assessment of Krawczyk coach Doucette said, "he has good control, spots the
ball, is a smart pitcher and has good location where Matt and Ryan have good
velocity and good curves."
The offensive punch by Chester throughout the three game
series showed a display of strong line driving hitting which Doucette said came
after their first scrimmage "and then we saw Goshen twice and Middletown which
are double
AA and single A schools and in these games we were popping up
a lot but the adjustments we made after that resulted in line
drives."
"We don't strike out a lot, we are a good contact team and
we're tough 1-9," Doucette added.
In absorbing the three-game losing streak Tri-Valley coach
John Rusin had high praise for Chester saying, "they put the ball in play, they
don't give up on the bats, they play great defense , their pitchers keep them in
the game, they don't walk many batters and they are a very well rounded baseball
team."
Rusin pointed out "that is seems like every game in this
series one inning is where things got bad for us." "We played five out of seven
or six out of seven good innings but unfortunately you need to play solid for
seven innings to make a good baseball game, Chester did that and we did not" he
added.
In putting a positive approach to his team coach Russin
said, "I believe in my guys, they have the goods to be great, they are a great
bunch of kids and they work very hard but we have to move forward as we have six
league games left, 12 games left overall and our goal is to get into the
sectionals and we don't care how we get in and we hope to get enought league
wins to do that."
The one bad inning in Thursday's game for the Bears was the
top of the second when Chester scored five runs off four singles, two doubles
and an error. Chester scratched out one run in the top of the first inning and
took an early 6-0 lead after two innings.
Winning Chester pitcher Krawczyk also had two hits, Cabrera
added three hits including a double and drove in three runs and Giovanni Alfonso
doubled and singles twice to boost Chesters record to 9-2 and 6-0 in OCIAA
Division V league play.
Scoring honors for Tri-Valley went to Rodney T. Jester who
doubled twice, drove in a run and scored a run. Mike Foster had two hits and
Justin Swarthout added two RBI's. The Bears overall record is 2-6 and 2-4 in
OCIAA league games.
In the first game last week at Grahamsville Chester won
easily with a 15-3 score where Coffee allowed only five hits and struck out 12
over six innings.
Alfonso went 4 for 4; and Colin Marco had three hits and three
RBI's. Chris Wittekind also added three hits for Chester.
Tri-Valley's Jester and Foster each had two
hits.
The second game last week at Chester saw Cabrera getting the
win for Chester as he also went 2 for 4 with an RBI. He struck out nine in six
innings.
Colon Marco drove in two runs for the
Hambletonians.
Jester had a two-run double and Josh Borozny went 2 for 3
for the Bears.
Chester this week moves on to play Tuxedo and Tri-Valley
plays S.S. Seward.
PHOTO INFORMATION FOR SOME OF THE PICTURES
Tri-Valley shortstop/pitcher Rodney T. Jester led the Bears
scoring attack in the three games last week against Chester with two hits
Monday, a two-run double in Tuesday's game and doubled twice, drove in a run and
scored a run in Thursday's game.
Chester senior pitcher Zach Krawczyk struck out 10 Thursday in
the Hambletonians 12-6 win over Tri-Valley.
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