Nottingham wins 8th straight in a rain-shortened game
TRENTON >> Whether it’s a sunny day on a dusty high school diamond or a rainy day in a soggy Class AA minor league ballpark, it doesn’t seem to matter to the Nottingham High baseball team these days.
The Northstars made it eight straight by taking a 6-3 win over Hamilton West in a rain-shortened game at Arm & Hammer Park Thursday. The game was called in the bottom of the fifth as a constant downpour made it impossible to continue.
“It wasn’t bad conditions for three-and-a-half innings,” Nottingham coach Jim Maher said. “The last inning and a half were a little shaky. We wanted to give it a shot. We’re playing well right now, we want to play as many as we can play. We’re playing pretty solid baseball.”
So was Hamilton (67), which had won three straight entering the game.
But Nottingham (10-4) struck quickly with three in the bottom of the first, taking advantage of some wildness by freshman Ryan Beczo and a key error. Beczo was coming off an outstanding effort over Steinert but issued two straight one-out walks. He appeared to get a double play ball from Joe Garey but the ball was booted.
Bryce Fremgen and Sam Raymond followed with RBI singles and Garey scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.
After getting a fly ball to start the second, Beczo came out for what his dad, Joe, said after the game was more for precautionary measures on the cool day, rather than an injury.
Charlie Geiger came on to throw 2.2 innings of solid relief, but his first batter, Sean McGeehan reached on a three-base error and scored on Tommy McParland’s sacrifice fly.
Hamilton scored two two-out runs in the third on Nick Ziccardi’s RBI triple and Kyle Harrington’s RBI single. Harrington was 3-for-3 and has 10 hits in his last 11 at bats. The Hornets then loaded the bases against starter and winner Ronnie Voacolo, who got a strikeout to end the threat.
The Stars added an unearned run in the third on Fremgen’s RBI double; West cut it to 5-3 when Ziccardi doubled and eventually scored on a passed ball; and Nottingham got an RBI triple from Raymond in the fifth before the umpires called it as the field was getting messy.
Voacolo went all five, allowing six hits and three walks while striking out six.
“It was tough conditions to pitch in,” Maher said. “He got some big strikeouts in a couple spots. He walked a couple guys he shouldn’t have walked in the bottom of the order, made some bad pitches with two strikes and hung some breaking balls. But it’s not easy conditions to pitch in.
“He’s won four games for us. It’s the first year he’s started and he’s developing.”
As are the Northstars, who were destroyed by Trenton Catholic before losing close games to Steinert and Notre Dame. Since then, they have not lost.
“We got embarrassed by TCA, that was probably the worst baseball game I’ve ever seen,” said Maher, who has seen some bad ones over the years as a die-hard Phillies fan. “We got embarrassed and we got a wakeup call. We said we would see what we were made of after that, whether we were any good. We played Steinert and Notre Dame pretty good and now we’ve won eight straight.”
In all kinds of weather.