Hamilton Post 31 reaches state Final 8
HAMILTON » It wasn’t a banner regular season by Hamilton standards but in the end, Post 31 is right back where it wants to be — in the New Jersey American Legion State Tournament’s Final 8.
After reaching the state final before losing to Hopewell Valley last year, Rick Freeman’s squad will be back at Moody Park by virtue of its 3-2 victory over Broad Street Park in a District 2 winner’s bracket game at DeMeo Field Sunday.
BSP, which had a Saturday loss overturned after Paterson used an ineligible player, will meet North Warren Monday, 7 p.m., with the winner joining Hamilton in the states.
“Everybody’s here to play,” said Post 31 third baseman Chris Cote, who reached base four times and played a part in every Hamilton run. “We’ve got a team full of players. We turn it on when it matters. The past is the past and we’re looking ahead.”
Cote contributed two hits and scored a run, while David Stec outdueled Adam Drosos on the mound by tossing a five-hitter with six strikeouts.
BSP pulled within 3-2 in the seventh on Jose Rodriguez’s two-out RBI single and Kiefer Goss would be Stec’s last batter before his pitch count ran out.
“I looked (at the scoreboard), I think it was the second to last pitch and I was at 105,” Stec said. “I was like ‘Oh man, I gotta get this kid. I want to finish this.’”
Stec got a pop-up to seal his second straight complete game.
“You can’t ask for much more from Dave,” Cote said. “That’s Dave. He threw well, we knew he had our backs in this and he carried us.”
Cote played his part as well. In the fourth, he reached on a leadoff single and eventually scored on Michael James single to break a scoreless tie. Post 313 responded in the bottom of the inning when Kiefer Goss and Kyle Harrington walked and Darius Land delivered an RBI single.
In the sixth, CJ Pittaro drew a leadoff walk, Cote singled and Brendan James dropped a bunt on which Drosos had a play at third. But he threw wild allowing Pittaro to score. Harrington entered and escaped a second-and-third, no-out situation unscathed.
But Hamilton got some necessary insurance in the seventh when Joey Sacco reached on an error, although it appeared the throw beat him. BSP manager Mike Petrowski argued, to no avail. Brady Plunkett walked, Cote was hit by a pitch and Brendan James lifted a sacrifice fly.
“That’s a huge insurance run,” Cote said. “That takes a little of the pressure off.”
“That’s always great when you score runs, it always helps out a lot,” Stec said.
It was Hamilton’s first win over BSP this year after losing twice to its township rival in the regular season. Stec suffered one of those losses, but came back with a vengeance.
“It’s the playoffs, you gotta bring it up a bit,” he said. “You gotta ramp up your level of play, increase your energy. I think I was able to do that today.”
For Broad Street, it was another case of beating itself.
“Our last three or four losses we’ve done things fundamentally wrong,” Petrowski said. “This year we’ve yet to get beat by the other team. Today we didn’t get three bumper hits down, we don’t get a sacrifice down with a man on second, no outs. All we had to do one inning was put down a dribbler and we score a run; and we throw a ball away that costs us a run.”
Hamilton (17-9) BroadStPark(19-8) 2B:
Elefant (BSP); MJames, BJames (H), Land, Rodriguez (BSP). Stec; Drosos.
WP— LP— 000101 000 100 RBIs: 1—350 1 — 2 5 2
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