Tuesday, April 12, 2011

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Eric Fernandez had two hits and stole a base for Lakeland, which held off Cliffside Park, 8-7, on Monday in its first game back in New Jersey.

CLIFFSIDE PARK – With his team ahead by four runs after nearly three hours of baseball on Monday afternoon, Lakeland senior Jarred Robbins was called upon to get the final three outs. It wasn’t a save situation and it looked like the five runs the Lancers scored in their final three at bats would be plenty to close out their first win of the season against a New Jersey opponent after playing their first three games of the year on a trip to Florida.

Robbins did his job by striking out three in his one inning of work, but the seventh inning was anything but a formality before the handshake. Because Robbins’ first strikeout bounced away from the catcher, Cliffside Park got its leadoff runner on base and because a tailor made double play ball three batters later was thrown into left field, Lakeland was left clinging to the slimmest of leads instead climbing into the bus for the ride back to Wanaque.

Cliffside got an RBI groundout from Fabian Gashi to cut its deficit to one run and got the potential tying run as far as third base before Robbins could notch his final strikeout to put the clamps on Lakeland’s 8-7 win on the turf behind Cliffside Park High School.

Shortstop Jeff Vasquez scored three runs for Cliffside Park, which fell to 2-4 on the season.

“When I got that first strikeout [in the seventh inning] I thought I was off to a good start, but that didn’t work out so well,” said Robbins. “After that I was just thinking that I had to get a groundball, a pop-up, a strikeout, anything to get those kids out. It wasn’t as easy as I wanted, but we hung on.”

It was Cliffside that was in a giving mood early as a dropped flyball in rightfield with two outs allowed Sean Reilley and Jesse Bruno to come home with the first two runs of the game in the top of the second inning. But Cliffside, which came in with back-to-back disappointing losses, got an RBI single from Michael Lanfranco in the second, a pair of doubles from Jeff Vasquez and Alex Orozco and a sac fly from Mike Mesisca to take a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the third.

Lakeland got even in the top of the fourth when Lou Saraceni’s leadoff walk turned into the tying run, but the Lancers left the bases loaded in that frame and were up and down both in the other phases of the game as well. Defensively and on the basepaths, were one good development was followed by a miscue. Lakeland made a handful of sparkling defensive plays accompanied by four errors. They waited out five walks and had 13 hits in the game, but stranded 11 baserunners, had two others picked off of second base and yet another was thrown out at home plate.

Sean Reilley went 5 innings to pick up the win for Lakeland (2-2).

“Most important is the ‘W’’ but this is the way we have been playing all year. We could have been 2-1 coming back from Florida, but we were 1-2 because we played this kind of baseball. We gave a game away where we were up 3-0,” said Lakeland head coach Rick Capozzi. “Base running mistakes, errors…this is a young team and we have a lot to work on.”

Even with the setbacks, it looked like Lakeland had finally taken control for good against tiring Cliffside starter Jalen Gotay (4 1/3 IP, 6 R, 4 ER, 8 H, 3 K, 5 BB) in the top of the fifth. The inning started with three straight singles by Robbins, Eric Fernandez and Lou Saraceni and Jordan Aughey’s 6-5 fielder’s choice gave Lakeland a 5-3 lead. Jesse Bruno added and RBI single and Brian Lacouture did the same for a 7-3 lead, before a 6-4-3 double play ended the inning.

Vasquez’s triple and an error in left field got Cliffside a run in the bottom of the fifth, and Lakeland had to settle for a single run in the top of the sixth after loading the bases with one out in the top of the sixth to go up 8-4, but then had to hold on with both hands in the bottom half of the inning. The first four Red Raiders all reached base. There was the strikeout/wild pitch that allowed Vasquez to reach leading off, back-to-back singles by Joe Crespo and Gotay and then the error on the double play ball that let Crespo score.

Fabian Gashi's RBI groundout in the bottom of the seventh got Cliffside back to within one run.

But Robbins, who was also 4-for-5 at the plate with a triple and two runs scored, struck out the next hitter, got a ground ball that allowed Gotay to score for the second out and then, with the tying run on third base, got a swinging strike three to end the game and save the win for Lakeland starter Sean Reilley (5 IP, 4 R, 4 ER, 8 H, 5 K, 1 BB).

Lakeland, which was the No. 14 seed heading into last season’s North 1, Group 3 state tournament before coming out as the sectional champion, improved to 2-2 on the season. The Lancers came out of nowhere to win the title last year and are stating from a similar point this time around.

“It’s very similar to last year. We started off with the same types of games in Florida, we played some games like we did here today and then we’d hit a stretch where we would win six games in a row. Whether or not that is going to happen or not this year because we have [Passaic Valley], Wayne Hills and Wayne Valley coming up, we are going to have to play a lot better just to compete in those games,” said Capozzi. “The only real returning starters we have are [Eric Fernandez] and Aughey. As far as experience, it is really in our pitching staff. Reilley threw OK today and we have some arms to keep up in games if we can clean up some other stuff.”

There is a similar spring cleaning going on in Cliffside Park (2-4) where the baseball program is no in the hands of Tony Schmitt, a former all-county shortstop at CP who went on to play his college ball at Hofstra. Schmitt, who turned 24 on Monday, is back at his alma mater to try to get it back to the heights it was during his playing days when the Red Raiders were perennial league, county and state tournament contenders.

“It’s been tough for Raider baseball the last few years, so we are just trying to get it back on the map. Little by little, we are trying to stay focused and put all the phases of the game together at the same time in the same game,” said Schmitt. “Baseball is a funny game and a little momentum can go a long way. If we can put a couple of wins together it will build up some confidence that we can use going forward. It can happen.”

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