Hitting, aggressiveness wins game for Ballston Spa
BALLSTON SPA» In a game that looked to be an easy win, Ballston Spa allowed eight runs in the sixth and seventh innings, but held on to get the 16-10 win over Columbia high school.
Ballston Spa head coach Curtis Nobles said the team was successful because they came out with a lot of energy, but falter in the later innings due to lack of experience.
“We had a great dugout intent, we were aggressive at the plate, we were aggressive on the base paths, Buffoline was awesome on the mound our first few innings,” Nobles said. “Where we gained the lead is where we have to get a little bit better, playing 21 outs. We kind of take plays off here and there and that’s just immaturity. We have some first year varsity guys and they will learn quickly because against great teams that can’t happen. This is a great win because Columbia is a historic as far as Section II, big time baseball program and for them to come in here and for us to handle them the way we did, I thought we did a very good job.”
A big reason for the win was timely and well-placed hits from throughout the batting order. One of the key players who helped the team put up crooked numbers in key innings was Luke Gold. Gold went 4 for 5 on the day, hitting two doubles, a single, and a homerun and reaching base on an error. Gold was one of the keys to the team win be-
cause he was able to move the batting order along and get someone on base that could get runs across the plate.
Gold said he had such a strong game because he was aggressive and waited for his pitch to hit.
“I knew they were going to throw one of the best pitchers, they have a couple of good guys,” Gold said. “I was just trying to be aggressive and hit fastballs early and get my pitch. I was just trying to be aggressive early on fastballs that I could drive, just trying to hit the ball hard in the air.”
Nobles said the team was successful for the same reason that Gold said he was successful, being aggressive.
“We are aggressive in everything we do,” Nobles said. “Throwing strikes, catching the ball, running the base paths, putting the ball in play hard, dugout intent, it was pretty rowdy in there today and that’s the way we like it.”
The first inning was the start of the scoring in the matchup with Gold hitting his homerun, getting two RBIs and getting his team a 4-0 lead. Gold came back again in the second and got an RBI double to put more runs on the board along with Jake Manderson, who had an RBI single in the inning, putting the team up 7-0.
Columbia would fight back and score one in the third, but that was all they could get until the later innings.
Once starter Geordan Buffoline got deeper into the game, he started missing his spots and the pitching started to falter. After him saw three more pitchers come into the matchup and struggle to get outs. Ryan Salerno was the next one in and he started to let in the runs and struggled to get outs along with the defense making errors that allowed more runners on the base paths.
The Scotties had put up 13 runs heading into the top of the sixth and gave up three in the inning. The bottom of the sixth saw them put up three more runs, but the Blue Devils came back and scored eight runs of their own in the seventh to make the game close, but the Scotties were able to limit the damage and get out of the game with the win.
Columbia head coach Chris Dedrick said his team was able to fight back because of a number of things.
“I think it was a combination of Ballston Spa trying to get some guys some innings that may not get a lot of innings all the time,” Dedrick said. “We put some good at bats together, attacked some fastballs in the right situation and were able to put up some runs.”
Dedrick said that the team is struggling to win games this year because the Blue Devils are not hitting in key situations.
This team can score runs, but right now we are not finding the right combination and getting the job done in the early innings. One of the things we have been struggling with is getting guys into scoring position early in the game and not capitalizing on it. This is the third game in a row where we have had second and third no outs and we have taken three strikeouts, so we just got to do a better job early in the games of putting pressure on teams. Today after the first inning, we are down 4-0, got kind of punched in the mouth in the first inning and we get some base runners, but we are just unable to score runs, so that’s where we are at.”
Nobles said that the team needs to improve on themselves.
“We need to improve on late inning defense, late inning pitching and just keep our energy where it needs to be, we can’t take plays off,” Nobles said. “We need to learn to play 21 outs from the first out to the last out.”