BSP earns key win heading into district play
HAMILTON » After losing a close game at Bordentown Post 26 in its secondto-last game of the regular season, the Broad Street Park Post 313 baseball team wanted to finish stronger.
With an unexpected chance at a Mercer County American Legion League title, manager Mike Petrowski’s squad did not want to lose the magic that has been the summer of 2017.
So to finish stronger BSP only needed to look to the heart of its lineup and No. 2 and No. 3 hitters Shane Hoffman and Kyle Harrington.
Both players scored two runs, had three hits and drove in two runs to power Post 313 to an 11-4 win over Ewing Post 314 at Hamilton High Tuesday.
Harrington, for one, seemed to keep getting stronger this summer as he chased the cycle in his final regular season game before finishing a home run shy.
“All I came into the summer wanting to do was to do better than I did in high school this spring,” Harrington said. “I went into this, knowing that I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong. I went back to scratch. Didn’t really change anything. Just started taking easy swings until my swing started to come back.”
In the process, Harrington has batted just below .500 for most of the summer and Broad Street Park has gone 17-5 to finish just behind Hamilton Post 31 in the standings after holding the top spot for much of the regular season.
“None of us expected anything like this,” Harrington said. “It would have been nice to win Sunday (at Bordentown), but since we didn’t, we wanted to win today, so that we could stay home for districts.”
That may well be the case as eight MCALL teams prepare for the postseason. Their site choices will be determined over the next few days.
With Hoffman hitting well ahead of him with two doubles on the day, Harrington did not rest until his team grabbed its goal.
His RBI double down the thirdbase line in the first inning chased home Hoffman (bunt single) to tie the game before Cameron Bruschini singled him in.
In the third inning, Harrington led off with a triple and Bruschini once again singled him home.
It would be that kind of day for Post 313’s offense, which pounded out 14 hits. It was the kind of strong performance the team needed because Post 314 (517) has been playing well down the stretch and would have liked nothing more than to be a thorn in BSP’s side.
“As the season went on, people began realizing they can trust the people behind them,” Ewing’s Justice Jones said. “It was a matter of realizing there are a lot of people behind you, not just you. Then we started playing better.”
As a result, manager Mike Ryan’s team came into its last game having stayed within three runs of the last five teams it played, winning three of those games.
“We had a week where we played five games and won four,” Jones said. “That boosted our confidence.”
Broad Street Park had that realization from the time the season began EWING
abrhbi Salvatre 3b 4 0 0 0 Ulrich ss 4 1 1 0 Storer dh 1 1 1 0 Miller cr-rf 1 0 1 0 Ditmars 1b 4 1 1 1 Yarson c 1 0 1 0 Dirk c 1 0 0 0 McKeon cfp2 0 0 0 Gregg ph 1 0 0 0 JJones lf 1010 Brodsky lf 2101 Guthrie rf 1000 Alston rf-cf 2 0 1 1 Basich 2b 2000 Htchnsn 2b 2 0 0 0 Totals 29 4 7 3
Ewing (5-17) Broad St. Park (17-5)
BROAD ST. PARK
abrhbi JsRdrgz ss 5 1 0 1 SHffmn cf 5 2 3 2 KHrngtn rf 4 2 3 2 Brschni 1b 4 1 2 2 Venutolo lf 4 1 2 2 Cardna 2b 2 0 1 1 CLuckie c 3011 Guerrro cr 0 1 0 0 Elefant 3b 3 2 2 1 Hayes dh 3111 Swzkski pr 0 0 0 0 Totals 32 11 14 11
1000201—4 202 025 x — 11
E — Salvatore, Brodsky, Alston, Elefant 2, Anselmo; LOB — Ewing 11, Broad Street Park 11; 2B — JJones, Ditmars, Miller, KHarrington, Hayes, SHoffman 2; 3B — KHarrington; SAC — Cardona; SB — Ulrich, Storer 2, Miller, Brodsky, Cardona, KHarrington, Bruschini.
IP HR ER BB SO
EWING POST 314
Figueroa L,1-2 4.1 8 6
McKeon 1.2 7 5
BROAD STREET PARK POST 313
Anselmo W,5-1 4.2 4 3 2 2 7 Chiacchio S,1 2.1 3 1 0 0 0
HbP- by Figueroa (Elefant), by McKeon (Hayes), by Anselmo (Storer, Guthrie, Dirk, McKeon, Brodsky); WP — Figueroa 4, McKeon.
6 5
4 1
3 0
and the wins kept going its way. When things started to slide the slightest bit, Post 313 focused on getting stronger like Tuesday.