SPRING 10U SQUAD SHOWED TOUGHNESS
Cal Ripken team holds of Poughkeepsie in regional opener
LATHAM, N.Y. » The Spring Baseball 10U Cal Ripken squad knows how to bend, but not break.
The Troy-area youth baseball unit showed power and strong defense early in the opening round of the Eastern New York State tournament and then held off a tenacious Poughkeepsie rally to escape with an 8-6 win. Friday’s doubleheader at the Boght Road Complex in Latham was not completed by press time.
Spring starter Jack Fraser cruised in the opening innings, buoyed by a four-run first inning by his offense, scoring four runs on four hits and setting up a potential easy opening tilt.
Dan Keefe led off with a walk, scored quickly on Finn Harkin’s RBI double who then advanced on a passed ball and scored on Colin Behan’s RBI single.
“I was thinking about hitting one right up the middle to score the runs,” Harkin said about his opening plate appearance. “It was outside, I just went with it.”
Andrew Sparks reached on a fielder’s choice and scurried around the bases on a passed ball and stolen base, scoring on Nicholas Chicaway’s RBI single to right field. He advanced to second on the throw in and raced to third on Nick Kraz’s single down the right field line.
The savvy red shirts showed their guile when Alex Halwick popped out to the first baseman in foul territory near the right field fence. The batter was disappointed, but it led to Chicaway tagging up and scoring the fourth run of the opening stanza.
Fraser opened with a 1-2-3 inning courtesy of a throw down to second base to catch Poughkeepsie leadoff batter Michael Sabini attempting to steal the base after his infield single. Fraser then faced just four batters in the second inning before Poughkeepsie began to get around on the righthanded starter.
Spring tacked on another tally in the top of the third after Behan led off with a double and advanced on a force out at second, Kraz’s groundout to the right side allowed him to score to make it 5-0.
Poughkeepsie stroked two doubles off the starter and pulled within a run on a four-run, fourhit third inning that made it 5-4.
After a going down in order in the top fourth inning and giving Poughkeepsie life with a threating bottom half, Spring rallied once again for a three-run fifth.
Harkin reached on a one-out single and raced to third on a throwing error by the third baseman, then scored on a sacrifice fly deep to right field by Sparks for the go-ahead run.
Harkin finished the day 2-for-4, robbed by the Poughkeepsie second baseman in his final at bat, after he snagged a laser shot by diving to his left and flipping the ball back to first for an inningending double play.
The Spring slugger shrugged off the late inning heroics by the visiting defense.
“You have to forget about it pretty quick,” Harkin said. “I wouldn’t mind if I went 0-for-3 and our team won, I only really care about winning.”
With Behan at first courtesy of the Poughkeepsie throwing
error, he immediately stole second and came around to score on Chicaway’s second RBI single of the contest. He didn’t have time to rest as Kraz again singled to right and scored on Alex Halwick’s RBI infield single gave Spring an 8-5 lead.
Poughkeepsie didn’t go quietly, testing the depth of the Spring bullpen after three straight walks loaded the bases and Spring manager Kevin Behan went with his fourth arm of the day, Chicaway to close out the
contest.
“I wasn’t nervous, I was ready to go in,” Chicaway said about moving from third base to the mound after just a few warm-up pitches. “I wanted to pitch strikes.”
Chicaway was welcomed with a bases loaded walk to push Poughkeepsie within two runs in its final at-bats.
Utilizing his three-pitch repertoire, a fastball, a cutter and his ‘out pitch’ a curveball, Chicaway struck out the final batter to earn the save and an opening round win.
With the heart palpitations starting to dissipate within the Spring faithful,
manager Kevin Behan was major league calm.
“We put in a lot of hard work early, played a lot of out of town teams to get ready for this,” Kevin Behan said. “A lot of guys don’t get a chance to play in states, so we cherish what we did and worked very hard at what we do and we pride ourselves on defense. We try to put the kids in every situation so they’re ready for this stuff.”
Utilizing four different arms in the opening contest also didn’t faze Behan who will had to prepare his Spring squad to face both Clifton Park and another downstate entry, Beacon, Friday before closing out
pool play Saturday against New Paltz at 11:30 a.m.
“We are fortunate to have almost every kid on the team can pitch, that’s a luxury that we cherish as well and a lot of teams don’t have that depth, so we’re hoping that carries us as far as we can possibly go,” Behan said. “It’s a big bonus having several arms that can come in at any time and throw strikes.”
The top two squads in each division advance to single-elimination playoffs Sunday, quarterfinals at 10 a.m. and semifinals set for 1 p.m. with the championship game scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday.