Young players benefit from summer event THE SCORE

It’s never too soon to prepare for the future no matter how much success a program has enjoyed.

A few months removed from a narrow defeat in a district final, a new-look Comets squad took to the first annual Amherst Baseball July Classic and battled its way into the final for a showdown with Medina on July 30. Despite an efficient effort from starter Justin Hritsko, Amherst fell shy of the tournament crown as the Bees scored in the sixth and took home a 2-1 victory.

The Comets and head coach Matt Rositano came away with valuable experience this summer. A group of sophomores and juniors came out and showed how beneficial this new tournament can be.

“Basically, today’s lineup had four sophomores, one senior, all younger guys that don’t have any varsity experience whatsoever, and the improvements I saw from Wednesday to today were phenomenal,” Rositano said. “The speed of the game I think was a shock to them on Wednesday and Friday, and the game kind of slowed down. Our pitchers started throwing strikes, I thought Justin pitched really well today, and our approach as seeing varsity pitching for the first time, for those younger guys, I thought got much better as the week went on.”

The Comets earned two big victories to make it to the final. They had to come back to beat Medina on July 29 before topping Willoughby South earlier in the day to square off against the Bees once again.

Rositano said he was encouraged MEDINA 2, AMHERST 1

by what he saw out of his young players.

“These guys have a lot of pride and to put together a game yesterday and beat Medina, 2-0, just to get to today and then beat a really good Willoughby South. Our bats came alive there a little bit that game and then play a good game against them today, I though it was great,” Rositano said.

In the fast-paced affair, Amherst opened up the scoring in the top half of the first inning. An RBI single by junior Jacob Lezon scored Jake Hart from second. Medina answered right back as the home team (due to tournament seeding).

From then on, Hritsko locked in and started cruising. The sophomore pitched a complete game and looked comfortable in his second start on varsity, the first coming earlier in the week.

“Just a little nervous pitching at this level, I just went out and tried my hardest and pitched strikes,” Hritsko said. “I felt that I got better today, learned the game more and tried my hardest out here and proved maybe I can play at a higher level.”

The Comets now start the long offseason before baseball returns next year with the hopes of getting further in the state tournament. Rositano said he would like to expand the tournament next year to include more teams.

“We talked to the other coaches, I’m hoping to get more teams,” Rositano said. “More teams, expand it and hopefully maybe make it a week-long thing instead of five days.”