Monday, June 2, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Brett Knief had three hits in his final three at bats and was named the tournament MVP as Don Bosco Prep won its third straight Bergen County championship with a 13-5 win over St. Joseph.

DEMAREST -- For the first four innings of the championship game of the 50th annual Bergen County Baseball Tournament it was a contest. For the final three innings, it was a coronation. Don Bosco Prep, the undefeated top seed that was the two-time defending champion coming into the game is now the first team to win three straight titles. The Ironmen overcame an early five-run deficit to defeat St. Joseph Regional, 13-5, on Sunday at Demarest High School and now stand at 31-0, two wins away from a perfect season.

Gregg Butler, who had won three titles as Demarest’s head coach (1992, 1993, 1995), got his first at Bosco in his first year at the Ramsey parochial school and now has four overall, tied for second place all time with Teaneck’s Joe Cervino.

“It’s a tournament that I respect tremendously and there is a reason that no one had [won it] three times in a row. The game of baseball is bigger than all of us and there are too many things that you have to overcome,” said Butler. “This is a special team and it is apropos that a special team did a very special accomplishment.”

Junior Kevin Ferguson retired the first seven hitters he faced as his teammates gave him an early 5-0 lead to work with.

Frank Salvano, St. Joseph’s head coach, is the all time leader with five county championships and his team came out intent on making it six. Brian Bullard, the first hitter of the game, singled and David Wood followed by reaching on an error and the Green Knights were in business not long after the national anthem was done playing.

Patrick Kivlehan made a loud first out, a seed lined into the glove of Bosco second baseman Mike Vargas, but two straight walks to Brendan Lobban and Ryan Levine pushed the first run of the game across the plate. Kevin White then drove in a run with a fielder’s choice, Alex Aitkens’ single made it 3-0 and St. Joe’s had Don Bosco starter Eric Pfisterer on the ropes in the very first inning.

Back-to-back doubles with one out in the second inning by Wood and Kivlehan a 4-0 lead and Bullard scored an unearned run in the top of the fourth to make it 5-0 in front of a stunned crowd. Meanwhile, St. Joseph starter Kevin Ferguson was more than effective over the first three innings.

Ferguson, a junior lefthander, retired the first seven hitters he faced, all of them on ground balls, but then Brett Knief led off the bottom of the fourth with Don Bosco’s second hit of the game, a hustling double. From there, the Bosco hitting machine cranked it up a notch. After being held to just one hit over the first three innings, the Ironmen exploded for 14 over the final three innings and once they kicked the lid off of home plate they never relented.

Eric Pfisterer gave up four hits in the first two innings and then just one the rest of the way to pick up the win for Don Bosco Prep.

Pfisterer, who by that time had long since settled in on the mound, drove in Knief with Bosco’s first run of the game with a long double to right centerfield. Ben Luderer and Chris Picyk each added RBI singles to draw Don Bosco back to within 5-3 after four innings and it was just a matter of time before the Ironmen blew by their NNJIL rival.

“We came out here thinking we could beat them and for four-and-a-half innings we gave them [heck]. Then we self destructed,” said Salvano, whose team saw it season come to an end with a “Against a team like this you have to play for seven innings. We were up 5-0 and even at 5-2 I still felt pretty good, but then [Ferguson] got a little tired then we started to make some bad plays in the field and that was it. It’s tough enough getting three outs in an inning against them. You start giving them four or five and it is suicide.”

Bosco sent nine batters to the plate in the bottom of the fifth and scored four times to take a 7-5 lead. Steve Proscia, Brian Struk and Luderer all had RBIs during the four-run rally and the Ironmen knocked Ferguson (4 1/3 IP, 7 R, 9 H, 1 K, 0 BB) out of the box. Joe Jimenez came on to get the final two outs of the fifth inning, but his defense let him down in the bottom of the sixth when Bosco scored six more times.

Pat Kivlehan knocked in SJR's fourth run with a single in the second inning.

“It’s only a matter of time before we come alive. We just need that one spark to really ignite the flame,” said Knief, Bosco’s junior leftfielder and who had hits in all three of his final plate appearances, scored all three times and hit a sixth inning home run on his way to tournament MVP honors. “The most we have been down [this season] is one or two runs so when they hit us with a five-spot we were a little bit worried, but we knew we would come around.”

Knief’s home run was a solo shot with one out in the sixth and two errors helped keep the carousel turning long enough for Sam Cerbo to go deep to the opposite field that plated Bosco’s last two runs. Showing the depth of Bosco’s lineup, the seventh, eighth and ninth place hitters (Luderer, Picyk and Cerbo) were a combined 7-for-10 with a home run and 7 RBI.

And after his slow start, Pfisterer was locked in for his final five innings of work. After allowing four hits and two walks over the first two innings, allowed just one hits and three walks the rest of the way. He finished with a complete game five hitter and struck out five. Only one of the five runs scored against him was earned.

Ben Luderer had three hits and drove in two runs for Bosco, which is now 31-0 on the season.

“This was a great hitting [St. Joseph] team and a lot of people don’t give them credit for being the powerhouse that they are. I was just trying to go out there and throw strikes and they jumped on me a little bit,” said Pfisterer, a senior who came back on three days rest after throwing 126 pitches in a state tournament win over Pope John on Wednesday. “I knew I had my support behind me. We made a couple of errors but we had to pick each other up. That is what being a team is all about.”

What Don Bosco’s team is all about this season is making a run toward being the best in Bergen County history. A case could be made that the Ironmen, who now stand at 31-0, are already the best ever, but two more wins, one in the Non-Public North A state final against Seton Hall Prep, the team that ended Bosco’s season last year, and one in the state final on Saturday would wrap up the title as Bergen's Best without much of an argument to the contrary.

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