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Indian Hills gets a lead; Valladares makes it stand up |
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OLD TAPPAN – In the NBIL, where the difference between baseball teams can be a slight as a bounce of the ball, the winning formula is simple: throw strikes, put the ball in play and take advantage of an opponent’s mistake or two. Indian Hills did all of that in the first inning of road game at Old Tappan on Monday afternoon and the four runs it put up in the opening frame, even if three of them were unearned, turned out to be just enough.
Dan Valladares was responsible for two of the three ingredients
as hits his one-out, two-run double made Old Tappan pay from some
sloppy defense and he then threw strikes for seven innings, going
the distance on a four-hitter as Indian Hills held on for a 5-3
win and its second straight victory after a loss on Opening Day.
But
it was the Braves that applied the early pressure as, with one
out in the top of the first inning, Brian Greer reached on a error.
Rob Safir followed with a single and Nick Fiore drew a walk to
load the bases for Valladares, who delivered the double the other
way to put Indian Hills in front for good 2-0 just five batters
into the game.
Valladares has been elevated to the No. 1 slot in the Indian Hills
rotation with the graduation of both Jarrod Avidon and Justin
Van Grouw and, after a rocky outing in the season opener against
Glen Rock, showed that he is up top the task.
Valladares
ran into his first bit of trouble when hit Jeff Pinelli with the
first pitch of the bottom of the fourth inning. Mike O’Reilly
followed with a sacrifice bunt and Steve Casamento got the Golden
Knights on the board when he sliced a double into right field.
A hit batsmen and a walk got Valladares into trouble again in
the fifth as pinch hitter Joe McNerny delivered an RBI single
and O’Reilly did the same two batters later to get Old Tappan
back to within 4-3.
Old
Tappan (1-2) starter Ian Osterman was pretty locked in himself.
His defense let him down in the opening inning, but never rattled
and set down 15 of the 18 batters he faced over the next five
innings. He left after six allowing just one earned run, four
hits and two walks while striking out eight. It wasn’t until
after Osterman exited that Indian Hills was able to add an insurance
run. “For
us the big thing is just putting the ball in play because when
you do that it can either find a hole or the other team can make
some mistakes. I have to do that and the whole lineup has to do
that for us,” said Safir. “Every year we just try
to outdo what we did the year before and we have great team chemistry.
A lot of us have been playing together since freshman year and
we all pick each other up.”
Old
Tappan got the leadoff hitter on in its final turn at bat courtesy
of a Joe Rizzo single, which meant that it also had the tying
run at the plate for e the next three hitters, but Valladares
retired the final three hitters of the game to close out Indian
Hills’s second win of the season against one loss. FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com. |
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