Kingston back to winning ways
Tigers survives Monroe-Woodbury rally in top of 7th for 6-5 OCIAA victory in opener of three-game series
Kingston High survived some anxious moments in the seventh inning, but held off to defeat Monroe-Woodbury 6-5 in Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association baseball action at Gruner Field.
Thomas Restivo had three singles and two RBI, Jake McNutt had a double and two RBI, Jon Kivlan doubled twice and drove in one run and Christian Ott allowed just two earned runs over 6 1/3 innings to lead the Tigers.
Kingston scored three runs in the third. Fritz Genther opened the door with a two-out walk and the Tigers barged through as Kivlan and McNutt hit back-to-back RBI doubles and Ott had a run-scoring single.
Restivo’s two-out RBI single made it 4-0 in the fourth.
Monroe cut the lead in half in the top of the fifth, but Kingston got a run back in the bottom half and Restivo delivered another two-out RBI single in the sixth.
The Crusaders capitalized on a misplayed grounder for three runs in the seventh.
Three consecutive singles and a wild pitch had Monroe within 6-4 with runners on second and third and one out. Genther relieved Ott.
A ground ball made it 6-5 and put the tying run on third, but the junior struck out the next batter to get the save and end the game.
“Except for that last inning, we had been playing some solid baseball,” Kingston coach Mike Grop-
puso said. “That was a big win for us.
We have been swinging the bats well lately with well-executed situational hitting,” Groppuso said. “Our starting pitching has also been very consistent lately with Christian, Joe
(Ferrer) and Steven (Freer). It’s just a matter of being able to play more consistently defensively and clean up the mistakes.
“We need to be able to do all three in order to find ourselves
where we want to be.”
The Tigers, who traveled to Central Valley to face Monroe on Tuesday in Game 2 of the three-game series, return to Gruner to host the Crusaders on Thursday.