“I felt good. It was Opening Day, I was psyched. All during school today I was going nuts because I couldn’t wait to pitch today,” said Forestieri, a junior left-hander who is one of Bergen County’s top starting pitchers. “I would rather pitch in the warm weather, but today was fine. It was the start of our season, we were playing Garfield who I had good luck against last year (with 16 strikeouts) and it was good to just get going.”

It took two batters for Forestieri to heat up, but once he did he was lights out. He walked the first two hitters he faced, Brian Wehner and Ljupco Apoleski, but he struck out two in a row to end the first inning and then set the side by strikeout in the second on the his way to six dominant innings.

Forestieri, who complimented his over-powering fastball with a sharp-breaking curve ball and the occasional slider, allowed just one hit and struck out 11 before turning it over to Ian Steepy, who worked a scoreless seventh inning as Elmwood Park won its season opener, 4-0, on Thursday afternoon in a game that was originally scheduled for Tuesday but was pushed back because of rain.

“We were a little bit concerned because Garfield played yesterday, they had a game in hand on us, and you can do all of the talking you want but until you see the ball live from the hand of a pitcher, you are anxious,” said Joe Sutera, who is in his first season as the Elmwood Park head coach. “We didn’t play our best game today. We made some mental mistakes and Jarred ran some counts deep, but he showed the kind of pitcher he is by getting better as the game went on.”

He also gave himself some breathing room as it was Forestieri who, literally, stole Elmwood Park’s first run of the season. Before he got to throw a pitch, Forestieri drew a walk in the top half of the opening inning with two outs. He went to third on Anthony Koban’s single and when Koban drew the attention of Garfield’s starter Adam McCarthy after the next pitch by wandering off first base, Forestieri broke for home and beat the play for a 1-0 Elmwood Park lead.

Elmwood Park (1-0) did the rest of its scoring in the top of the third inning when it strung together three hits and a walk. Edwin Cabrera, EP’s leadoff hitter and centerfielder, got the rally going with a double down the left field line and Forestieri (1-for-1, 2 R, 2 SB, RBI) delivered a run-scoring single two batters later to make it 2-0.

After Koban drew a walk, a stolen base, a fly ball to deep center by Tom DeSiervo that moved Forestieri up to third and a passed ball that pushed Koban into scoring position, John Wareka singled to left field to drive in the final two runs of the game.

McCarthy (0-1) allowed just one hit and one walk over the final four innings and pitched better than his final line suggested for Garfield. The right-hander allowed five hits and three walks while striking out six for the Boilermakers, who fell to 0-2 after dropping a one-run decision to Lodi in their season opener on Wednesday.

“It was very important to set goals, but goals that are attainable. We couldn’t come in here and say we are going to win the Bergen County Tournament or a section title. I think they have only qualified for the state tournament here once since 1990,” said Sutera, who won two sectional titles when he was the head coach at New Milford. “Our goal is to win our league first, then qualify for the state and county tournaments and then see what happens once we are in there.”