THE FINE NINE
Nottingham draws first blood in rivalry with Allentown to remain undefeated
Nottingham’s David Scott celebrates after scoring a run in the fifth inning against Allentown during Wednesday afternoon’s game.
HAMILTON » Even on an afternoon where Nick Houghton didn’t have his best stuff, the Nottingham High righthander was still pretty darn dominant.
Houghton allowed one hit and struck out 12 over 6.2 innings, David Scott had a clutch two-out double in the fifth and combined with some good fortune the Northstars remained undefeated with a 3-0 victory over Allentown in a CVC Valley Division game on Wednesday.
“When I don’t have my best, I just got to stay focus and bear down and work with what you have,” Houghton said. “That’s the biggest thing, working with what you have. My fastball was all right. I spiked a few, but other than that I was throwing that pretty consistently and then I had a few good sliders mixed in with it.
A senior committed to Monmouth University, Houghton has struck out at least 10 batters in all three of his starts and has 40 punch outs in 20.2 innings over four total appearances. That means 64.5 percent of his outs (40 of 62) have been recorded via strikeout.
He fanned an Allentown batter in each inning he worked and struck out the side twice with a one-out double by Giuseppe Arcuri over the third-base bag in the fourth standing as the lone hit. Maybe his three walks and two hit batsmen proved his self-professed lack of sharpness.
“I just keep doing what I’m doing,” Houghton said. “I know I can get guys out with my pitches so that’s my biggest factor, bearing down and getting guys out on my own. I don’t really pay attention to (the strikeouts). Sometimes they’ll tell me, but usually I don’t care about that too much until the end of the game.”
When Houghton pitches, the Northstars (9-0) know they only need to scratch out a few runs, which is what they did with one in the third and two in the fifth even though they only got three hits themselves and took the lead under controversial circumstances.
With two outs in the third and Houghton on third, Scott attempted a surprise bunt, and although the ball clearly bounced up and hit him in the box neither umpire called it dead and after a moments hesitation by both Scott and the Allentown catcher, Scott dashed toward first and the throw sailed down the rightfield line.
“They said that there was no foul ball and it moved obviously from my bat, but once I saw it over the kid’s head I was running,” Scott said. “They didn’t call it, so I jut kept going.”
Allentown coach Brian Nice refused to blame that one play for deciding the game.
“The flip side of that is the kid’s out by 50 feet if we make a throw,” Nice said. “We got to make plays. It had nothing to do with anything the guys in blue did. We got to take advantage of the situations when we got them offensively and we didn’t do either one of them. A couple things go different and we’re up 1-0 in the bottom of the fifth.”
There was nothing controversial about Scott’s RBI double in the fifth when he came up in the same exact situation and ripped a shot into the left-field corner.
“That pitcher was doing very well painting the corners, but he mistakenly put it right inside and I turned on it,” Scott said. “I knew it right away. I was like, ‘that’s a bad idea.’”
Scott scored Nottingham’s third run on a wild pitch later in the inning.
Houghton (2-0) retired four of the next six batters he faced via strikeout, but missed out on a complete game after issuing a twoout walk that took him to 113 pitches — three more than the 110 permitted by NJSIAA rules.
Jake Nitti (1-1) allowed three runs (two earned) on three hits, walked six and struck out three in 4.2 innings for the Redbirds (6-2).
Allentown’s best chance to score against Houghton came in the fifth when a runner reached third with one out before the Northstars’ ace wiggled out of trouble with a fly ball and strikeout.
“Sometimes the pitcher gets the better of you and he’s one of the best if not the best in the area,” Nice said. “Sometimes you get beat by a better pitcher and today we did.”
Nottingham also extended its home winning streak to 31 consecutive games.
“We kept the record, which is what we intended to do,” Scott said. “This is a very big win for our program because they took away everything last year — MCT and states — but we came back and have all the seniors this and we’re going to pound it to them.”
The teams meet again on Friday at Allentown.