Saturday, May 31, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Glenn Flora hit a two run homer and scored three times for Lyndhurst, which won its first state sectional baseball title since 1984.

LYNDHURST -- There are some strange ordinances on the books in municipalities across the United States. In Las Vegas, Nevada, it is illegal for a person to pawn his or her dentures. In Asheville, North Carolina, it is illegal to sneeze within city limits. In Duncan, Oklahoma, it is illegal to wash one's clothes in a birdbath. And in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, the town has ordained that any one of its high school sports teams that wins a state championship shall be awarded with rings.

So with an 8-2 win over Weehawken on Friday afternoon in the North 2, Group 1 state sectional final at Breslin Field, it is time for the Bears to measure their fingers. It is the first state title for Lyndhurst’s baseball program since 1984 and the first for the school in general since the girls volleyball team won a section title in 1992.

“Our township wrote and ordinance way back when when our football team was undefeated in ’83 and won the state championship that said that anybody who wins a state championship will be bought rings,” said Lyndhurst head coach Butch Servideo. “Our kids are looking forward to this ring ceremony, which has been a long time coming.”

Andrew Nasti drove in Weehawken's first run in the top of the sixth inning.

Lyndhurst’s state title drought came to an end after two straight years of losing in the section final to Hoboken. This time around the Bears played from in front right from the get-go as they scored two runs in the first inning on a two-out, two-run double by Evan Levario that scored Bubba Jasinski and Glen Flora.

In the bottom of the second, Lyndhurst broke the game open with the help of a key error that opened the door to a four-run inning and a 6-0 lead. With two outs and a runner on third, a throwing error on a groundball hit by Jasinski allowed Eddy Tuero to score to make it 3-0, but more importantly it kept the inning alive for Flora, who was next up and drilled a long home run over the fence in left field.

“It was a fastball right down the middle and I just had to take advantage,” said Flora, Lyndhurst’s junior ace who will get the ball to start Tuesday’s Group 1 state semifinal against Park Ridge at Ramapo College. “I am going to be icing, taking care of my arm just to get ready for [the Park Ridge] game. It’s going to be a big game and I can’t wait.”

The Bears got one more run in the second inning when Levario was hit by a pitch, stole second, went to third when the throw down reached centerfield and scored on a wild pitch and handed over a 6-0 lead to junior starter Kevin Smolensky, who held Weehawken’s usually potent lineup at bay for the better part of his five-plus innings.

Junior Kevin Smolensky allowed jsut one hit over the first five innings and picked up the win for Lyndhurst.

“It’s not disappointing that we lost, it is the way that we lost that is disappointing, not putting up a fight. We’ve been averaging between 9 and 12 hits a game and they shut us down,” said Weehawken head coach Anthony Stratton, whose team won just 11 games in the previous three years combined before posting an 18-7 mark this season. “You have to take your hat off to Lyndhurst. They have been here before, they had the experience in this kind of game and they were the better team today. We are disappointed because we did not go out the way we wanted to go out.”

Smolensky gave up just one hit (a first inning double to Montilla) through the first five innings. He did not walk a batter and struck out four over that span.

“Weehawken is a good hitting team and Coach [Servideo] told us that the team that makes less mistakes was going to win. I was able to get groundballs and pop ups and I have a real good defense behind me,” said Smolensky. “I don’t feel like I have to strike a lot of batters out with the defense that we have and that takes a lot of pressure off of me.

Edgar Montilla about to stroke a sixth inning double for Weehawken.

Weehawken had a runner thrown out at the plate trying to score on a flyball to centerfield in the top of the fourth, but a brilliant throw by Levario cut off that scoring opportunity and the Indians had to survive the bottom of the fifth just to keep the game going.

Lyndhurst, which swept the season series between the two BCSL-National Division teams, had the bases load with one out needing just two runs to end the game via the mercy rule, but couldn’t get the big hit. It was the one moment of worry for Servideo, whose team had an 8-1 lead against Weehawken in their first regular season matchup only to see his team give it all back before squeezing out an 11-10 win.

“We know this team. We put up eight [runs] before against them in the first two innings and we remember what happened in that game. We ended up winning by one run,” said Servideo, a Lyndhurst graduate himself who played on the Bears’ 1966 and 1968 Bergen County championship teams. “A lead is never too big against Weehawken and that is why I wanted to put the game to sleep when we had the chance with the bases loaded, one out and our No. 3 and No. 4 hitters coming up. I wanted the game to be over right then and there.”

Bubba Jasinski and Lyndhurst will play Park Ridge on Tuesday in the Group 1 state semifinal at Ramapo College.

It didn’t happen, but the Indians’ lone hint of a comeback came in the top of the sixth when they knocked out Smolensky after he hit Kelly Hogan with a pitch leading off and then gave up a double to Montilla and an RBI single to Andrew Nasti. Tommy Farrell came on in relief and was greeted by Orlyn Molano’s RBI fielder’s choice, but Lyndhurst was more than happy to trade outs for runs and Farrell kept Weehawken off the board in the seventh to wrap up the section title in front of a crowd that numbered at least a couple of hundred, a huge number for a high school baseball game.

“It’s certainly the biggest crowd that I have seen in a long time,” said Servideo. “To win a state section after getting so close last year and then getting beat in the finals, this meant a lot not only to us an our families, but for the community as well because as you could see there were quite a few hundred people here.”

FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.