Westfield defeated Warren 7-4 in the District Semi-Finals to advance to the District Championship game where they will face South Orange Maplewood (SOM) for the 3rd consecutive year. Westfield scored all of their runs in the 1st 2 innings and the Blue Devils got strong pitching and defense throughout to secure the win.
After Vincent Difilippo retired the 1st 3 Warren batters in the top half of the 1st inning, Chris Varano led off and stole 2nd to put Westfield in scoring position. Varano scored on a blistering single to center field by Nick Mele. Difilippo followed with a walk and then both runners stole to set up a 2nd and 3rd situation with 1 out. Mele scored on an RBI ground out by Chris Rinaldi and Difilippo scored on a clutch 2 out RBI single by Devin Anderson.
Warren narrowed the lead to 3-2 on a long home run to right center field, but the Westfield offense came back and put up 4 runs in their half of the 2nd inning to extend the lead to 7-2. Liam Heinbokel drew a walk and then he advanced to 3rd on a perfect bunt single by Michael Mobarakai. Varano followed with a walk to load the bases with no one out and then Eric Varakian singled past the drawn in infield to drive in Heinbokel. Mele followed with a hard ground to 2nd and Warren threw home to force Mobarakai at the plate leaving the bases loaded with 1 out. Difilippo drove the next pitch to deep right field and the right fielder caught the ball, but Varano scored from 3rd on the sac fly. Chris Rinaldi then singled to left to drive in Varakian and Mele.
Warren managed to get a runner on 2nd base with 1 out in the 3rd but a great play by 1st baseman Chris Boutsikaris got Westfield out of the inning. Boutsikaris made a leaping stab of a line drive to record an out and then he led shortstop Rinaldi to the bag at 2nd with a great throw to double off the runner and end the inning. The two players were awarded Blue Balls for the play.
Warren threatened in the 4th inning and they scored 2 runs, but two great defensive plays prevented any further damage. The first play was made by Brett Robertshaw, Difilippo and Varakian. Left fielder Robertshaw charged a hard single and threw to 3rd baseman Difilippo to try to nail a runner trying to advance to 3rd. The runner got in under the tag, but an alert Difilippo fired to 2nd baseman Varakian to nail the batter who attempted to stretch his single into a double. Pitcher Hopper Murray made the next great play when he made a lightening quick stab of a hard grounder up the middle and threw the batter out at first base. All players were awarded Blue Balls for the plays.
Westfield held Warren in check the rest of the way and Difilippo, Murray and Rinaldi combined to hold Warren to 6 hits while striking out 6. Scott Tupper made a spectacular diving play in center field in the 5th and barely missed recording the out on a hard line drive.
Westfield plays Chatham next on Monday at 6:00 PM on Gumbert #2.
No comments:
Post a Comment