Sunday, April 4, 2010

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Senior Adam Chicick won seven games for River Dell last season and got his first this year in the Hawks' 10-2 win over Glen Rock on Saturday.

ORADELL – With a convincing win over Indian Hills on Thursday, the Glen Rock baseball team immediately threw itself into the conversation as one of Bergen County’s sleeper teams to watch during the season. With that one win, it went from a team with something to prove to a team that opponents are going to use a measuring stick.

Things can turn on a dime in baseball and the Panthers learned that the hard way against a River Dell team hungry to score a quality win.

River Dell jumped out to an early lead and took advantage of numerous miscues and walks in pulling away to a 10-2 win on Saturday at River Dell High School.

River Dell jumped on the scoreboard first with an RBI single from Rookie deMarrais. The Hawks tacked on three more runs off of Glen Rock starter Matt Lawsky in the third to take a commanding 4-0 lead.

“I definitely had to battle today, so I’m glad I had a lead to work with,” said River Dell’s senior right-hander Adam Chicick. “We knew Glen Rock was just coming off of a big win and we had to come ready to play. Our goal is to make some noise in the county and the states. You have to win these types of games if you’re going to go far.”

Glen Rock catcher Tyler Blind getting an out on a play at the plate.

Glen Rock stranded six baserunners over the first three innings, but finally got on the scoreboard against Chicick in the fourth. The Panthers best chance to get back in the game came in the fifth when, after a pair of leadoff walks, Aaron Weisberg laced a run-scoring single to cut the lead to 4-2. But on the play, a Glen Rock baserunner got caught in a rundown and was eventually tagged out. Chicick ended the inning with a strikeout to preserve the lead and end the threat.

“That was a real chance for us to do some damage and we ran ourselves out of the inning,” said Glen Rock head coach Joe Sutera. “But that was just one of many, many mistakes we made. We didn’t throw strikes, we didn’t execute offensively, defensively, or on the base paths. You do that against a good team like River Dell, you don’t give yourself much of a chance. We just went from one extreme of beating a team like Indian Hills to playing the way we did today. I hope this provides the wake-up call we needed.”

The Hawks closed out the game with six runs over the next two innings. Matt Famularo, Bill McGoey, Dylan Smith, and deMarrais all had RBI singles during that span as River Dell improved to 2-0 on the season. Chicick led the team with seven wins last year and picked up his first of the season yesterday. Brian McGoey allowed just one hit over the final two innings to close out the game.

Keith Barworth and River Dell will open the league season on Monday against Cliffside Park.

The George Washington-bound Weisberg, who had the win against Indian Hills on opening day, went 2-for-3 with an RBI for Glen Rock (1-1). The Panthers will look to regroup when their B-PSL league schedule starts tomorrow against Lodi.

With a stretch of six tough games in a row, River Dell got off to a good start, but with teams like Rutherford, Tenafly, Mahwah, and Westwood still looming in the next nine days, head coach Brandon Flanagan knows the lesson Glen Rock learned in the loss may be the same lesson his team could be learning if they do not clean up their play at the plate, on the bases, and in the field.

“It is a confidence boost to beat a team like Glen Rock, but we have a lot of room to improve,” said Flanagan. “We did enough to take advantage of mistakes, get some runs across, and get out of a few tough spots. But we made some mistakes on the bases and in the field that we have to settle quickly. The positive to take from this though is that we were able to beat a good baseball team so early in the season and we’ll try to carry that into the (Cliffside Park) game on Monday.”

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