One for all the marbles
Junior has three RBIs, earns one-out save
North Smithfield baseball team keeps its title hopes alive with a 4-2 win over Classical and will have a rematch Wednesday for the Division III crown.
PROVIDENCE — North Smithfield sophomore Michael deRonde put the No. 4 Northmen on the precipice of playing for the Division III title Sunday at Rhode Island College with three RBIs and a superb running catch in the sixth inning against No. 2 Classical.
The Northmen, however, needed a little more from deRonde.
With two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, deRonde replaced starting pitcher Chris Matulaitis after the senior loaded the bases with three walks. The junior struck out Chris Genao on five pitches to secure a 4-2 victory at Rhode Island College to force a winner-take-all title game.
“Honestly, I was pretty calm and I was just taking deep breaths. I just had to throw strikes,” said deRonde, who hadn’t pitched for the varsity team since he threw 68 pitches in a May 3 defeat to Paul Cuffee. “I knew that if we got a ground ball or a pop fly that we would be out of there. I trusted my defense.”
“He does a nice job of keeping the ball in the zone and putting the ball in play,” North Smithfield coach Jon Leddy said of deRonde. “He’s done a great job converting from the infield on the JV team to playing outfield for us. He’s just a great athlete.”
North Smithfield (16-5) has now won three consecutive elimination games to reach the title contest against the Purple, who cruised through their first two contests to earn two shots at winning the title.
The game will be played Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Rhode Island College, which means Leddy has the option of bringing back senior ace Adam Blakemore after he threw a complete game in Saturday’s win over Paul Cuiffee. Trevor Pascoe, who started earlier in the week against the Warriors, is also an option to start.
“We have a lot of seniors who don’t want this thing to end,” Leddy said. “They’re gutsy kids. The seniors know that this could be their last baseball game ever, so I think they want to keep it going as long as possible.”
Classical (15-4) starter Juan Reynoso pitched a complete-game eight-hitter, but he allowed three runs in the fourth inning, and that proved to be the difference in the game.
The Northmen have had a bad habit of committing errors early in playoff games and that proved to be a problem again Sunday because an infield error allowed the first inning to continue and Reynoso scored an unearned run against Matulaitis. The Northmen committed four errors, which led directly to both of Classical’s runs.
“Chris pitched really well, but he may have gotten a little fatigued as the game went on. Everyone feels the pressure at this point,” Leddy said. “The difference between us and them is we made four errors and they only had one. A lot of their runs came on our errors.”
Reynoso, thanks to a great throw by third baseman Sam Bush to cut down Cullen MacDonald at home in the first, only faced one batter over the minimum through three innings. He ran into trouble in the fourth inning when he stopped throwing strikes.
With one out, he walked Blakemore and then hit Jacob Forbes with a pitch. After recording the second out, Reynoso allowed a single to Pascoe to score Blakemore to tie the game.
The Northmen loaded the bases for deRonde, who hit the second pitch he saw from Reynoso to right field in front of Josiah Kim to plate Jack Losardo and Pascoe.
“I was just trying to put the bat on the ball and put it in play,” deRonde said. “Anything can happen when you put it in play. I didn’t know if it was going to get down, but I was praying it would.”
deRonde delivered again two innings later when he flew out to Fry to score Losardo, who started the sixth inning with an infield single. The junior then made a superb running catch in right field with one out in the sixth inning to keep his team up by two.
“He stepped up when he’s been in there. He’s an excellent defensive player,” Leddy said. “He’s a shortstop on the JV team, but he has so much range that we need him in the outfield.”
Matulaitis walked one batter through the first six innings, but he walked three of the first four in the seventh. He induced a fielder’s choice ground out from Christian Sanchez before throwing one pitch to Genao. Leddy said Matulaitis was taken out after the pitch because he reached the pitch-count limit of 110 with his final pitch to Sanchez.
“It was my mistake,” Leddy said. “He was at 110 after the last batter. If there’s a fine from the (RIIL), then I will handle the fine. I thought I had another pitch or so, but I wanted to be as honest as possible and I went out and got him.”
deRonde finished off his superb afternoon with a four-pitch strikeout to put the Northmen one victory away from their first division title since claiming the 2008 Division II crown.