Princeton wins pitchers’ duel with Hightstown in tourney

PRINCETON » The 2018 Mercer County Baseball Tournament began in earnest Monday with the Battle of the Bens as Hightstown High sophomore right-hander Ben Simon and Princeton High junior right-hander Ben Amon squared off at Valley Road Field.

The young man called “Big Ben,” 6-foot-4, 150-pound Amon came out on top as he hurled his seventh-seeded club to a 4-0 win over the 10th-seeded Rams. It marked the first time since 2005 that the Tigers had won a first-round MCT game.

With the victory, Princeton (10-7) advances to play at second-seeded Allentown (16-3) at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the quarterfinal round.

“This one’s way up there,” Amon said of the win and his pitching performance. “I felt great out there and had all the confidence in the world in my defense.”

The feeling was obviously mutual since Amon only allowed seven balls to reach the outfield — two of those were singles and two were shallow fly balls. The other three were fly balls hit to right field by right-handed batters, showing Amon’s dominance.

“That was his best outing all year,” Tigers 10th-year head coach Dave Roberts said. “Ben has really put in the work and effort to improve. It was a great performance from him.”

Hightstown junior leadoff hitter Mike Caniano was the only player to have much success against Amon, going 3-for-4 with three infield singles.

“(Amon) was throwing good and locating his pitches well,” said Caniano, whose bunt single in the third inning was the Rams’ first hit. “I just tried to get on base. I thought when we had runners on, we could do some damage.”

That was almost the case in the fourth inning when Jonathan Drews singled and Liam Monahan reached on an error. With two outs, both runners reached scoring position. But Amon enticed Gabe Winzinger to ground out to end the threat.

With two more on and two outs in the seventh after a Winzinger walk and Caniano infield hit, Amon got Jared Stillwagon to fly out to end the final threat.

“I’ve been working on every pitch,” Amon said of his continued improvement on the mound. “I’ve worked on cleaning up my motion, my leg kick and using the same arm angle. It’s all made me more accurate.”

While Amon was scattering five hits with two walks and six strikeouts, Simon was giving him quite the duel. The Hightstown sophomore also scattered five hits to go with three walks and three strikeouts, but manufactured a run in the first inning to put him in an early hole.

Jaedyn Paria drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the first before advancing on a wild pitch and a ground out by Tommy Reid. Swarthmore College-bound Paul Cooke then plated Paria with a sacrifice fly.

Two innings later, Cooke doubled after Reid was hit by a pitch. Alec Silverman then singled them home before his courtesy runner, David Valente, scored on a two-out error for all the runs the Tigers could manage off Simon.

That was all the support HIGHTSTOWN

abrhbi Caniano cf 4 0 3 0 Stillwgn 2b 3 0 0 0 Drews ss 3010 Monahn1b3000 DeTrolio 3b 3 0 1 0 Auker lf 3000 Wnzngrdh2000 Busa pr 0000 Delgado rf 3000 Mazurekc 20 00 Kasoffph 10 00 Simonp 0000 Totals 27 0 5 0

Hightstown (7-11) Princeton (10-7)

E — Mazurek, Drews, Delany; DP — Hightstown 1; LOB — Hightstown 8, Princeton 7; 2B — PCooke; SF — PCooke.

IP HR ER BB SO

HIGHTSTOWN

Simon L,2-3

PRINCETON

Amon W,2-2 7.0 5 0 026 HbP- by Simon (TReid 2); WP — Simon 2, Amon.

6.0 PRINCETON

abrhbi Paria cf 3110 TReid 1b 2100 PCooke rf 1 1 1 1 Silvermn c 2 0 1 2 Valente cr 0 1 0 0 YsnAgn dh 3 0 0 0 Okoye lf 3000 Chawla 3b 3 0 1 0 Delany 2b 3000 Amon p 2010 Girouardcr 0 0 0 0 MRamrz ss 0 0 0 0 Totals 22 4 5 3

5

0000000—0 103000x—4

4 333

Big Ben would need to lock up Princeton’s first MCT win in 13 years.