Round up of area state playoff action
WALL » Given that the Hopewell Valley baseball team scored four runs off Monmouth-bound pitcher Nick Houghton to win Saturday’s MCT championship over Nottingham, the Bulldogs had reason to believe they could generate enough offense against another ace when the NJSIAA state tournament resumed Tuesday.
But in the end, Wall’s Trey Dombroksi held the upper hand against one of Mercer County’s most balanced lineups.
The 6-foot-4 left-hander tossed a complete game with eight strikeouts as top-seeded Wall knocked out fourth-seeded Hopewell with a 3-1 victory in the Central Jersey Group III semifinals. The Crimson Knights (22-4) advance to host third-seeded Allentown in Friday’s sectional title game.
“We got a scouting report, and everybody can hit on that team,” Dombroski said of Hopewell. “That’s a really good team. I was just trying to come out here and execute, and I feel like I did my best at doing that. My off-speed really helped me get ahead in the count, and then I finished out with the fastball. Nothing better than that — having a secondary pitch as your primary pitch for this game.”
Hopewell (25-3), which was vying for its first appearance in the sectional final since winning the crown in 2010, produced progressively better at-bats against Dombroski but couldn’t quite get over the hump.
The Bulldogs tallied all five of their hits in the final three frames, but they ended the afternoon with seven runners left on base — five in the sixth and seventh innings.
Liam Cleary’s RBI double to deep left center in the sixth scored Jack Haynes, who reached base on an error and moved to second on a balk. Later in the inning, Cleary was gunned out at home on a grounder to third, and Hopewell would ultimately strand the bases loaded after Mike Savas drew a walk.
Dombroski remained unflappable under pressure in the seventh as Haynes and Cleary recorded two-out singles. The hard-throwing junior induced a groundout to third base to end the game.
No other team has mustered more than four hits all year against Dombroski, who entered with only one earned run allowed in 43 2/3 innings this season.
“He was a very good pitcher. He knew how to command the game,” said Cleary, who batted 2-for-4 as Hopewell’s leadoff man. “He had a very good curveball, spotted it up on the outside corner a lot. Timing-wise, we got our timing a lot better, and we were seeing the ball better as the game went on.”
Hopewell right-hander Tony St. John pitched a solid five innings, walking none and allowing only two earned runs. Yet with so little margin for error, the Bulldogs hurt their cause with a few self-inflicted errors in the field and on the base paths.
In the bottom of the first, Wall took a 1-0 lead with two outs following an infield single up the middle, a bloop single to left and then an error on a grounder to third base.
On offense, Hopewell had a runner picked off at first on a throw from home plate in the fourth, then another at second base on a pickoff move by Dombroski in the fifth.
Wall made Hopewell pay in the bottom of the inning, again coming up clutch with two outs with two key insurance runs via Dylan Richey’s RBI single and Grant Schulman’s RBI double.
“Typically that doesn’t happen. We work on that stuff all the time,” 14th-year head coach Ken Harrison said of the base running miscues. “I think Andy (Blake) lost his footing (at first base), and that’s what led to that. And then at second base, that’s unacceptable, but they’re high school kids. Sometimes it happens.”
Still, it was a historic season for the Bulldogs, who won a school-record 25 games, captured the program’s first MCT title and lost only once in 19 games against local Colonial Valley Conference opponents.
“This team did a great job of gelling together,” Harrison said. “We had like six, seven first-year starters this year. We knew we were going to be good and talented, but if you’d have told me we were going to be 25-3 at the end of the year, I would’ve said you’re probably crazy. But it’s a testament to the seniors. They did a great job stepping up and just bringing everybody together. They had a great team attitude and a never-say-die attitude. You could see it to the end here.”
Added Cleary, a junior: “It was an amazing year. It’s very tragic that it ended, but I think next year we’ll come out firing again with hopefully a state title and an MCT title this time.” HopewellVal(25-3) 000 001 0 — 1 5 1 Wall (22-4) 100020 x—371 2B: Cleary (HV), Shulman (W); RBIs: Cleary (HV), Shulman, Richey (W). WP— Dombroski; LP— St. John.