Tuesday, May 10, 2011

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Chris Ramasco's single with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning plated the winning run as Pascack Hills got back to .500 for the season with an 8-7 win over Lyndhurst on Monday.

MONTVALE – It was going to take a lot for an opposing leadoff hitter to upstage Lyndhurst senior Mark Naseef on Monday afternoon. As the game’s first batter, Naseef stroked a double that tied him with 2008 graduate Anthony Dorio as the all-time leader for hits in a career in one of Bergen County’s top baseball programs. With his infield single in the top of the fourth, Naseef picked up hit No. 130, placing him alone atop the Bears’ all-time hits list.

Pascack Hills leadoff hitter Chris Ramasco would have to wait awhile to make his mark at the plate, but he also took full advantage. With the bases loaded and nobody out in the home half of the seventh inning, Ramasco used all of his allotted pitches, battling from behind in the count to run it full.  Ramasco’s achievement was more of the team variety and important just the same. He smacked a groundball past the drawn in infield to plate Bill Van Geldren with the winning run in the Cowboys’ entertaining 8-7 victory. 

“I was telling one of my teammates in the dugout a couple of innings earlier that I wanted to be in that situation today. I wanted to be up with a chance to win the game,” said Ramasco, Pascack Hills’s starting second baseman. “When [the count] got to 3-2 I just wanted to make sure that I swung at a good pitch or I would take the walk and win the game that way. When I saw it was a strike, I just want to do something with it, hit it hard somewhere and hope it got through.”

With hits in his first two at bats, Mark Naseef because Lyndhurst's all-time leader in hits (130).

The game was important for both sides as Lyndhurst, which carried a 16-2 record into, could have made a strong case for a top four seed in the Bergen County Tournament, which was selected on Monday night. Pascack Hills, which was coming off a one-run loss to Lodi on Friday, was one game below .500 with three to go before the cutoff for the state tournament. A loss would have meant that the Cowboys would need to sweep their two remaining games this week to ensure a postseason spot, but now one of two will do the trick.

“We have Rutherford, who we beat 1-0 the first time around, and Garfield, a team we lost to already this year, coming up, so winning today was important because nothing was guaranteed for us coming into this week,” said Pascack Hills head coach Frank Eufemia. “We’ve been playing games like this against quality teams all year, but we have always found a way to fall short. It happened in heartbreaking fashion against Lodi on a two-run home run, and a lot of times we have turned positives into negatives. So this win is really nice because we found a way to win a close game against one of the best teams around.”

It didn’t look like the game was heading for final at bat dramatics when Pascack Hills got a key defensive play in the top of the second inning and then broke out offensively for five runs in the bottom of the third. With the bases loaded and one out for Lyndhurst in its second turn at bat, Jim Fitzgerald, a left-handed hitter, pulled a line drive that was ticketed for right field and at least two RBI. But Cowboys first baseman Kyle Funesti, playing even with the bag, went airborne to snag the liner and stepped on first base for the key unassisted double play.

Chris Bickel (2-0) worked 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief to get the win for Pascack Hills.

Tom Tillison then singled to center to start the third inning rally for Pascack Hills, which got a two-run single from Brendan Branchini and RBI singles from James Airo and Funesti to take a 6-1 lead.

“Even though we have won 16 games, we’ve been inconsistent. We still haven’t put it all together. We make errors in the field, our pitching has been sporadic, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it is like it was today,” said Lyndhurst head coach Butch Servideo, whose team earned the No. 7 seed in the county tournament. “What has been there all year for us is our hitting.”

And the Bears used their team strength to get back in the game. An infield single by Joey Catena and a sacrifice fly by Frank Spanola in the fifth got Lyndhurst to within 7-3, and back-to-back walks by Naseef and Mike Walker leading off the fifth led to another two-run inning.

With the bases loaded, James Kim drove a ball to the left field fence, but had to settle for a sacrifice fly when Pascack Hills’ Jeremy Pic hauled it in a step or two in front of the fence and Catena added an RBI single to draw the Bears to within 7-5.

Dave Scheidenbach drove in a run in the top of the sixth and then scored the tying run, scoring from second on Rob Nichiro’s RBI single with two outs. Eufemia then called on senior Chris Bickel to get the final out of the sixth with the game tied at 7 and he worked out of a tight spot in the top of the seventh to give his team a chance to win it in its final turn at bat.

Lyndhurst's Dave Schneidenbach sliding in with the run that tied the game at 7 in the sixth.

Bickel gave up a single to Catena (3-for-3, 2 RBI, R) leading off the seventh and a two-walk to Rene Denes and then fell behind Naseef, 2-0, with runners on the corners. Denes then stole second to open a base for Naseef, but Eufemia chose to pitch to Naseef, eschewing the intentional walk that would have eliminated any margin for error.

“[Naseef] is a great hitter, I knew that, but I took a chance,” said Eufemia. “I just had a feeling; you know you get a gut sometimes? It’s backfired on me before, but I just said ‘what the heck.”

That left it up to Bickel to work carefully to one of Bergen County’s best hitter from way behind in the count.

“Congratulations to [Naseef] for breaking the hits record today, that is impressive, but against a batter like that he wants to be the hero. He is going to want to drive in that run and give his team the lead,” said Bickel, who threw his 2-0 pitch up in the zone. “Even from behind in the count you want to work around the strike zone. I got one up and I got him to pop up.”

Shortstop Hunter Trubatch squeezed the final out of the top of the seventh and the Cowboys set up their winning rally with in the bottom of the frame when Van Geldren singled leading off and took second on an outfield error. Branchini was then hit by a pitch, Ryan Listro got a blooper to drop to load the bases with no outs and Ramasco then came through with his single through the third base hole on a full count offering.

James Airo had two hits, two RBI and scored a run for Pascack Hills.

The win pulled Pascack Hills back even at 8-8 on the season and left them just one win shy of a guaranteed state tournament berth.

“It’s a big confidence builder. With the states coming up we have to get that winning mentality and today was a good day to get that going,” said Ramasco. “We have Rutherford on Wednesday and we are going to have to play just as good of a game to get that win.”

The loss dropped Lyndhurst to 16-3 on the season and into the county tournament as the No. 7 seed when it will host No. 10 Ridgewood in the Round of 16 on Saturday. With the step up in competition, Servideo knows that his team has to tighten up a few things to make a sustained run.

“In order to move on in tournament play you have to play good defense and you have to have good pitching,” said Servideo. “Those areas have been a little inconsistent for us and how well we do in those two areas will determine how far we go.”

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