April
17, 2005
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| Megan Flood allowed one single, one walk and nothing else in pitching Old Tappan to a 1-0 over previously unbeaten Cliffside Park. | |
OLD TAPPAN -- In a pitcher's duel, leadoff baserunners are at a premium and how well a team moves them along can make the difference between a win and a loss. Case in point: the first inning of Saturday morning's independent matchup between Old Tappan and Cliffside Park, which came in riding an eight-game season opening winning streak.
In the top of the first inning, Alyssa Guido drew a lead off walk and gave Cliffside an early scoring chance when she went to second base on a pass ball. Guido made it as far as third before Old Tappan starter Megan Flood got a strikeout and a ground ball to end the threat.
In the
bottom of the inning, Cindy Bagnoli lead off and reached on a two-base throwing
error. She stole third and trotted home on Lauren Dinsdale's RBI single. Six
innings later, Megan Flood had made the one run stand up, throwing a complete
game one-hitter in the 1-0 win that gave Old Tappan (7-1) its sixth straight
victory and handed Cliffside its first loss of the season.
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| Cliffside junior Ashley Minervini threw a two-hitter and allowed just one unearned run while striking out nine. |
"Get a run, make it stand up. That has been our M.O.," said Old Tappan head coach Melissa Landeck. "We've played a lot of close games already and we are doing a good job of keeping our focus and making plays when we have to."
The Knights played error free behind Flood, who has recorded every decision so far for OT and the senior hurler was in control throughout. The one hit she allowed came in the top of the second inning when Marissa Rives singled with one out then stole second to get into scoring position.
But Flood struck out the next two hitters to get out of the inning and did not allow another baserunner the rest of the way. She retired the final 17 hitters she faced and struck out a season high 11, including six in a row starting with the final out of the fourth inning and ending with the first out of the sixth.
"This
team this year tries to capitalize on any opportunities that we get. We knew
that Cliffside was a very good team, they were undefeated, so to get that
one run in the first inning was really important," said Flood, who is in her
third season as the Knights' starter. "I was hitting my spots on the inside
corner and I mixed in the occasional changeup and that kept them off balance.
Also my riser and screwball were working."
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| Cindy Bagnoli had one of Old Tappan's two hits and scored the game's only run. |
Flood's gem would have been tough to top, but Cliffside Park starter Ashley Minervini came close. She allowed just two hits in going the distance and worked out of jams created not by her own making. The Red Raiders (8-1) committed five errors and Old Tappan had a least one baserunner in every inning but the second, but Minervini pitched around the trouble every time.
She struck out nine, walked just one and allowed just two singles. Bagnoli's one-out single in the fifth was the only Old Tappan hit after the first inning.
"Against great teams like Old Tappan you have to make every play and if you don't, we saw today how they can take advantage of mistakes. They are a fundamentally sound, well-coached team," said Cliffside Park head coach Scott Bovino. "But I am not ashamed of the way we played today, we did some good things and we got a great effort out of Ashley on the mound. We just couldn't get anything across against Megan Flood and if we don't have the errors, we could still be playing. It could be 0-0 in extra innings right now."
Minervini, a junior, has been the key to Cliffside's resurgence. The Raiders won a game in the county tournament last season before hanging tough against eventual finalist IHA in the Round of 16 and is off to a 3-0 start in the BCSL-American Division this season. Cliffside has seven returning starters from last year's team.
"This
game doesn't take away from anything we have done so far, 8-0 is 8-0 no matter
what anybody else says," said Bovino, whose team gets back to league play
with matchups against Queen of Peace on Monday, Ridgefield Park on Wednesday
and Rutherford on Thursday. "Like I've repeated to the girls many times, it's
one game at a time with us and then we will look back and see how we did."
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| Marissa Rives (3) had Cliffside's only hit and stole second just ahead of the tag of Old Tappan's Kate Smithson on this play in the second inning. |
How Old Tappan is doing so far is a complete 180 from last year's disappointing season. The Knights got off to a slow start, lost on the cutoff date for the Bergen County Tournament to miss the field and finished with a 10-15 record and no state playoff appearance with a team that was loaded with seniors.
This year, Bagnoli and Flood are the only seniors in the starting lineup and the younger players have brought back the intensity that had made the Knights successful in the past. Dinsdale, Alexandra Rodriguez, Rebekah Demarest, Julia Congdon, Kate Smithson, Juli Sakayama and Stephanie Tendler are all junior starters and Stephanie Cintron is a sophomore.
"I think the girls have turned the corner in believing in themselves and believing that we can hang in there and win ballgames," said Landeck, whose team's only setback so far was a 1-0 loss to Northern Highlands in the second game of the season. "I think the difference is that we are not sitting back and waiting for the one bad inning to happen. Everyday somebody else is contributing with the timely hit or the defensive play that gets us out of an inning. Right now this team feels like it can find a way to make the play that is going to get us a win."
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