Westfield White battled a tough Springfield team on Sunday and the Blue Devils employed solid pitching, clutch defense and timely hitting en route to a 5-2 victory.
Michael Mobarakai, Chris Rinaldi and Vin Difilippo shared the pitching duties and the trio held the Springfield offense to only 2 hits while striking out 6 batters. Center fielder Scott Tupper made two outstanding defensive plays and was awarded Blue Balls for both. In the 1st inning and playing right field, Tupper fielded a hard line drive on one hop and immediately fired a strike to Chris Boutsikaris at 1st base to rob a single. In the 4th, Tupper made a shoestring catch on a sinking line drive to center field with a runner on 3rd and he then made a strong throw to the plate to prevent the Springfield player from scoring.
Springfield took a 1-0 lead in the top of the 2nd and it looked like they might have a big inning when after scoring, they went onto load the bases with 1 out. Rinaldi came onto pitch and he struck out the next batter for the 2nd out and he got the next hitter to pop out to short to end the inning.
Devin Anderson started the scoring in the 2nd when after reaching on a fielder's choice, he stole 2nd and scored on Tupper's clutch RBI single.
The score was tied at 1-1 when the Westfield offense came alive in the 3rd. Chris "Mariano" Varano launched a long drive over the blue fencing in left center field for a lead off home run. Nick Mele lined a shot off of the top of the high fence in right center field for his second hit of the game and he came around to score on Brett Robertshaw's 2nd hit of the game which was a clutch RBI double. Anderson then knocked in Robertshaw with an RBI single to give Westfield a 4-1 lead.
Springfield scored an unearned run in the 4th to close the deficit to 4-2. Westfield got that run back in the bottom of the 5th when Mele walked, stole 2nd and came around to score on a line drive RBI double into the right center field gap by Vin Difilippo.
Westfield continues District play on Tuesday when they face Summit at Gumbert Field #1 at 5:45 PM.
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