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*Story updated (at bottom of page)
Patience at plate, strong pitching carries Fieldston past Horace Mann in quarterfinals of baseball tourney
By Jason Eisenberg
May 22, 2011 -- Fieldston baseball head coach Tony Marro admits he would have been surprised if somebody told him his team would still be hitless more than halfway through the biggest game of the season. He probably would have been even more shocked -- considering the circumstances -- to learn that his squad still had a chance to win the contest, let alone actually be in the lead at that point.
Yet, this is the exact position the fourth-seeded Eagles found themselves in on Saturday morning while facing fifth-seeded Horace Mann during a quarterfinal matchup of the NYSAIS tournament.
With two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Fieldston was still searching for its first hit of the day, but the Eagles incredibly held a 3-0 lead thanks to a combination of senior Thomas McCarthy’s dominant performance on the mound and Horace Mann starter Jesse Roth’s consistent struggle to find the strike zone. As the Lions’ pitching staff continued to implode, the Fieldston bats eventually came around and helped spark the team to a 10-0 mercy-rule shortened victory in five frames.
“We obviously did not expect to go that long without a hit, but that is who we are, we are a patient team and we do not get rattled. Although Jesse is a top pitcher, you could tell even during warmups that he was having issues with control. It was not too tough to see,” said Coach Marro. “On the other hand, Thomas put our team on his back and kept it close in the early innings. He is our workhorse, one of the most coachable kids I have worked with and I cannot say enough about him.”
Both of the earlier meetings between these two local rivals this season proved to be tight battles -- Fieldston swept the pair by a combined margin of four runs -- and it initially appeared that this latest encounter was headed down the same path. McCarthy and Roth cruised through the first two frames without allowing a run and only one batter for each team made it on base safely during this stretch. Will Savage walked for Fieldston and Horace Mann’s Harrison Bader reached on an infield single, but both players were caught on attempted steals and never made it in to scoring position.
The control problems first began to emerge for Roth in the bottom of the third, when he walked two of the first three Fieldston batters, including Gordon Earle, who advanced on a sacrifice bunt by Matthew Nunez and then later came around to score on an RBI groundout by Will Savage. However, it really unraveled for the Horace Mann starter one frame later, as Roth walked five of the seven Fieldston batters he faced and forced in two more runs for the Eagles.
When Lions head coach Neil Berniker pulled Roth with two outs in the fourth, the hurler had not allowed a single hit, yet his team was down 3-0 due to all of the walks. The zero in Fieldston’s hit column would not last for long, though, as the Eagles’ bats immediately came to life against the Horace Mann bullpen. Will Savage and Matt Schwimmer each drove in two runs with back-to-back base hits, followed by a 370-foot RBI single off the centerfield wall by senior Thomas Savage, which capped off a seven-run inning for Fieldston.
With a commanding 8-0 lead, Coach Marro removed McCarthy from the mound in order to increase the likelihood of his availability for the next round of the playoffs. His replacement, sophomore Michael Bregman, struck out one and allowed a single hit, but was needed for just one scoreless inning of work because the Eagles would end the contest in the bottom of the fifth. McCarthy fittingly led off the frame with a walk, Gordon Earle then crushed a double over the centerfielder’s head and Will Savage put the game in the books with a walk-off single that drove in both runners for his fourth and fifth RBIs of the day.
“In any given game, you really are just looking to do your job and I know my role in the leadoff spot is to get on base, but today I was able to take advantage of the opportunity to produce some runs,” said Will Savage. “We knew their pitcher throws hard and has a reputation for being a little wild, so we did a good job of finding a balance between being patient and being ready to hit. It is great to be back in the semifinals again, but we expect to win every game and think we have a team built to win a championship.”
While this disappointing loss ends an otherwise strong season for Horace Mann -- it was the first time the Lions qualified for the state tournament in nearly a decade -- Fieldston finds itself back in the semifinals for a second consecutive year. Yet, according to the Eagles and their head coach, the job is far from over.
“Our goal has always been to win the last game of the playoffs. I think any team in this position has to look at it that way,” said Coach Marro. “I think you could tell that the guys were not super excited after this win today, and honestly that is good to see, because they should not have been. We can enjoy this for a few hours, but there is still more work to be done and I feel confident our entire team is onboard with that kind of mindset.”
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
Fieldston PLAYER OF THE GAME: Will Savage - The sophomore lead-off man reached base on three of his four trips to the plate, with a walk, two singles, one run scored and a whopping five RBIs on the day. Savage was the only Fieldston batter with multiple hits in the contest and he drove in half of the team’s runs.
Honorable mention: Thomas McCarthy - The senior pitcher threw four scoreless innings, struck out three and did not walk a single batter. Before the Horace Mann pitching staff drowned in a sea of walks, it was McCarthy that kept Fieldston in front when it was still a one-run game heading in to the bottom of the fourth.
*Update (5/23/11)*
For the second season in a row, the Fieldston Eagles fell to top-seeded Poly Prep in the semifinals and again finished one win short of reaching the NYSAIS championship game. Despite having just one hit and only three players reach base in the entire game, the local team was actually tied 1-1 with their Brooklyn-based opponents heading in to the bottom of the fifth. However, Poly -- widely considered to be the best team in New York City among all public and private schools -- responded with five unanswered runs to win the contest 6-1 and eliminated Fieldston from title contention.
