Gabe Correa slides home safely in Allentown’s four-run, fourth-inning rally in Fall League action.
By Rich Bevensee
The Allentown Legion baseball club has one more doubleheader remaining on its Diamond Nation High School Fall League schedule, and that’s bad news for Allentown opponents.
After sweeping its last two doubleheaders, Allentown has resuscitated its once-lost season and is now one of the hottest teams in the league.
On Wednesday evening at Diamond Nation in Flemington, Allentown leaned on two freshmen – on the mound and at the plate – to come through in the clutch, and the Mercer County-based club clinched its second straight doubleheader sweep with a 7-4, six-inning victory over the Hackettstown Tigers.
Earlier on Wednesday, Allentown defeated Go The Distance, 8-0, for its second shutout of the season.
Last week, Allentown knocked off Flemington Baseball Association Jays White, 11-1, and Flemington American Legion Post 159, 8-0, in a Monday night twinbill.
Allentown is 6-4 after the sweep and is now one of only four teams in the league to have won at least four straight this season. Whitehouse Post 284 (6-0) and Zoned RedHawks 18U (5-0-1) remain unbeaten and Montgomery Superior (12-3) is riding a remarkable 10-game win streak.
This four-game wave Allentown is riding comes after the club lost four straight to fall to 2-4 and had coach Sahil Thakur wondering what was needed to motivate his ballclub.
“It took rock bottom but we challenged these guys,” Thakur said. “We told them that we can keep coming up here after driving an hour and keep screwing around, or we can play with a purpose.
“We’re finally playing together as a team more. The first couple games, we had kids from different schools and things were getting clique-y in the dugout. Now these guys have gelled. They see the vision.”
It is remarkable what Thakur and Allentown have accomplished over the last two weeks.
During their four-game losing streak, Allentown was outscored 35-11. In this recent reversal of fortune, Allentown has won its last four games by a combined score of 34-5.
Allentown’s key to the turnaround has been defense. After committing 14 errors during the four-game slide, the team has had just one error in its last four games.
“We’re playing as a team more now,” said Gabe Correa, a Steinert freshman who got the win against Hackettstown. “We’re communicating better and everyone is doing what they have to do to get the job done. The errors are basically none in the past four games.”
Against Hackettstown, Allentown raced to a 7-0 lead while Correa, a 6-foot righty, pitched four scoreless, no-hit innings with 10 strikeouts and three walks.
“He stayed poised. That was his thing,” Thakur said. “He’s an eccentric character, such a fun person to be around, but sometimes it hinders his focus a little bit. Today he was money. On point from the start.”
Allentown, held scoreless by Hackettstown’s Trey Schneider and Reece Tufford for three innings, broke through in the fourth when it sent 10 batters to the plate and scored four runs on three hits, two walks, a hit batsman and two errors.
That’s when another freshman stepped up for Allentown. Toms River North’s Adam Tantum laid down a perfect squeeze bunt with the bases loaded to score Correa from third and give Allentown a 3-0 lead.
Janniel Hernandez singles in the first inning for Allentown Legion.
Tantum would prove himself as a clutch player again in the fifth when his opposite field grounder allowed Matt Hardcastle to score an important insurance run and give Allentown a 5-0 lead.
“I know I can’t really do a lot, so I do what I can, hit the ball on the ground and do what they ask me to do,” Tantum said.
“In the first game (against Go The Distance) he was 0-for-2 with two strikeouts, and it’s easy for a kid his age to feel overmatched,” Thakur said. “Before the second game we gave him some encouragement. We told him when things are going right, all the guys need to do the little things, and you’re going to get a chance to succeed. He answered the bell.”
Tantum would come up again in an important point later in the game.
With Allentown leading 7-0 going into the bottom of the fifth, Hackettstown rallied against Correa and Damien Porras by scoring four runs to get back into the game.
Tantum took the mound for the sixth and walked the first two batters, bringing the tying run to the plate. Tantum responded by getting a strikeout looking, and inducing a game-clinching double play.
“I was thinking, ‘I can’t walk them. I need to throw a strike here,’” Tantum said. “I wasn’t really nervous. I throw a lot of strikes in the middle and I don’t throw hard so I get ground balls.”
Porras kick-started the Allentown offense in the fourth when his sinking liner was nearly caught by a diving Isaac Diaz in right field and Porras landed on second with a double.
Porras raced to third on Hardcastle’s slow infield grounder and scored on an errant throw to first for a 1-0 lead. Correa doubled into the left-center field gap to send pinch runner Janniel Hernandez to third, and the errant throw back to the infield and out of play allowed Hernandez to score.
Then came Tantum’s perfect bunt to score Correa, and Hernandez was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded for a 4-0 Allentown lead.
Allentown tacked on two more runs in the fifth on back-to-back RBI infield grounders by Tantum and Will Marshall.
Hackettstown chased Correa from the box in the bottom of the fifth, but not before Marshall made a sliding catch on his knees in right to rob Antonio Peluso of a base hit to lead off the inning.
An errant pickoff throw to second allowed Hackettstown’s Braiden Costello to score from third, and with two out, No. 11 hitter Isaac Diaz belted a clutch double to bring Hackettstown within 6-4.
Allentown added an insurance run in the sixth on a Hardcastle RBI groundout to score Alex Katona, who singled and advanced to second on a balk.
Correa struck out 10 in 4 ⅓ innings and allowed four runs (three earned) on two hits and five walks. Porras gave up one hit and struck out one in two-thirds of an inning. Tantum pitched a scoreless sixth with two walks and one strikeout.
Schneider, the Hackettstown starter, pitched one scoreless inning and allowed one hit and one walk. Tufford surrendered four runs (two earned) on four hits and three walks with two strikeouts. Joey McCaffrey pitched the last two innings and gave up three runs on three hits and two walks.
In Allentown’s earlier game against Go The Distance (1-5), Hernandez went 3-for-3 with a double, two RBI and two runs scored. Matteo Pandolfini was 2-for-2 with two runs scored, R.J. Davis was 2-for-3 with an RBI, and Correa, Marshall and Connor Becker each drove in a run.
Yousef Farraj and Davis combined for a five-inning shutout with nine strikeouts while allowing two hits and six walks.