The Raiders entered the game with an 0-3 record and just as much as needing to replace the bagel in the win column, they needed a hit of any kind to get moving in the right direction. When Demarest starter Sean Blumenthal faced the minimum nine batters over the first three innings, it made it 17 straight hitless innings for Ramapo and the pressure was building to finally break through.

“I know I have lost some sleep about it,” said Ramapo skipper Mickey Hunt. “And then we go the first three innings here without a hit and you start to wonder if you are ever going to get a hit again.”

The hits eventually did come, two of them in the top of the fourth inning, and they came at opportune times. After Zack Moore reached on an error leading off the inning, Kevin O’Connor, Ramapo’s left-handed hitting centerfielder, roped a double to right center that chased Moore home all the way from first base.

With the gate finally removed from the entrance to home plate, Ramapo put up two runs in that fourth inning, added two more in its final turn at bat and scratched together enough offense for Steven Torrisi, who was brilliant from his first pitch to his last in a one-hit shutout that was the Raiders’ 4-0 win.

“It [a lack of run support] can get frustrating if you let it, but you can’t think about the offense when you are out there pitching. You just do the best you can to get the hitter out and not worry about anything else,” said Torrisi, a senior righthander. “You have to have confidence in your teammates, and I do, that they will come through eventually and today they did. It definitely feels good to get the first win and hopefully we can build on it.”

For as dominant as Torrisi was all day in less than ideal conditions, he was being matched by Demarest lefty Sean Blumenthal and it was the Norsemen that actually put together the game’s first threat.

Anthony Corso led off the bottom of the second inning with a clean base hit to centerfield for Demarest’s only safety of the game. Blumenthal and designated hitter Mike Sabo each tried to get down sacrifice bunts and both were successful with the added bonus of two Ramapo errors that loaded the bases with no outs.

But Torrisi secured a key strikeout and then Zack Moore made the most important defensive play of the game. Moore, Ramapo’s second baseman, charged a one-out groundball and waited for the baserunner, who obliged by running into the tag and Moore then threw on to Collin Sayde at first base for the double play that got Torrisi out of his only jam of the game.

“Zach made a great play, a smart play with the bases loaded and Torrisi did a great job to say the least, said Hunt. “It’s nice to be on the other end of a close, well-pitched game.”

Torrisi, who has drawn considerable Division 1 interest already, gave himself some breathing room with a one-out single that scored O’Connor with Ramapo’s second run in the fourth inning. Ramapo added two more insurance runs in the top of the seventh and they came unexpectedly after there were two outs with the bases empty.

But Blumenthal, on a 1-2 pitch, made one of his few mistakes when he hit pinch-hitter Bob Graber to keep the inning alive. Moore then drew a walk and O’Connor followed with his second double of the game and this second and third RBI. As O’Connor put it, “He hung ‘em, I bung ‘em.”

Blumenthal was a hard-luck loser for Demarest as he went the distance and allowed just five hits and three walks while striking out three. One of the four runs he gave up was unearned.

Torrisi's final line was most impressive as he struck out eight against just two walks and did not allow a hit over the final five innings. In fact, he faced just one hitter over the minimum over the final five innings with the lone blemishes being two walks with one of them being erased on a caught stealing in the third.

Ramapo is now off the schneid and the Green Raiders still have the same goals as they do every season with a league title and solid showings in the state county tournaments.

“In our first game we put up 10 runs so we knew we could do it, but it was just a matter of putting it together and not hitting the ball at people,” said Moore, Ramapo’s senior second baseman who reached base in two of his four plate appearances and scored two runs. “We have the same goals that we started the year with. We want to make long runs in the counties and states and we are just going to try to play our best and see how far it can take us.”

Demarest, which is a program in transition under first year head coach Mike Carcich, fell to 1-3. But nothing is yet lost in the first week of the season and the Norsemen were just a play here or a play there from a 2-2 start that would have looked much better in print.

“We had the one time where we ran into the tag at second [base] with the bases loaded. We could have had one run in with a chance for more. We had an error leading off the [fourth] inning and hit a batter with two outs in the seventh,” said Carcich. “But Sean [Blumenthal] pitched his heart out and as a coach that is all you can ask for.”

Breaking in a host of new starters, the Norsemen and their head coach will have the chance to grow together and Carcich is looking forward to the road ahead.

“The kids are great kids and I couldn’t ask for a better group of seniors to help with this transition,” said Carcich, the son of Emerson’s head baseball coach and athletic director Bob Carcich. “Coming into this situation some people could have been a little resistant, but these kids welcomed me and they are playing as hard as they can for me.

“The biggest transition as a first year head coach in this league is learning how to play in the NBIL. There are no gimmee games and you could lose to anyone any day,” Carcich continued. “And obviously game management is something that I am learning along the way. I am not the kind of guy that thinks I have all the answers but I will make the effort to find them all out.”