Derek Antigua socked a two-run triple for Squeeze Baseball.
By Rich Bevensee
Squeeze Baseball coach Art Clyde is looking for continued signs of maturity from his young ballclub. His players delivered on that hope during a critical juncture in back-to-back innings on Sunday night.
In a game where Squeeze was desperate for a flicker of offense, Derek Antigua crushed a game-shifting, two-run triple to give his team the lead and ignite a five-run rally.
In the very next inning, relief pitcher Saimon D’Adolf entered a pressure-packed situation, threw gas on the fire by loading the bases with no outs, then calmly got three outs to extinguish the threat.
On the heels of a disappointing tie game just hours before, those two moments defined Squeeze’s resilience and allowed the club from Old Tappan in Bergen County to conclude pool play at the Super 17 Fall Invitational at Diamond Nation in Flemington with a 6-3 victory over the New Jersey Rising Rebels 2027.
Squeeze left the Nation with a 2-0-1 record and just shy of being one of the top five teams invited to play in the Columbus Day Showdown in three weeks.
The tie game may have left Squeeze on the outside looking in for the Showdown, but the win allowed the team to leave ‘The Nation’ with optimism for the future.
“I think our plan was to shake it off (the tie) and we needed a victory to possibly get into the (showdown),” Antigua said. “And now we know what it takes to win.”
With Squeeze trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the third inning, Anthony Avolio and Johnnie Ragoonath earned back-to-back walks to lead off the frame and turn over the batting order. Antigua then belted a shot into the left-center field gap and used his 6.8 speed in the 60 to turn what would have ordinarily been a double into a scintillating two-run triple.
Austin Kim scores on a wild pitch for Squeeze Baseball.
“Derek is a powerful little guy,” Clyde said of his 5-7 leadoff hitter. “He’s fast and he’s strong. We only have a couple guys who are as strong, but not as fast. That was a double for most players.”
“I rounded first base and I thought, wow, they really haven’t gotten that ball yet. I definitely have three,” Antigua said. “I’m at second base and I see it and they still didn’t throw it in and I thought, I have three easily.”
It was a well-timed blow for Squeeze, which was thirsting for offense. Antigua’s two-run triple was his team’s first hit and one of only two for the entire game.
“That was a very good hit for our team, especially since there wasn’t much offensive production,” said Antigua, a sophomore at Northern Valley at Old Tappan. “I put our team up, everybody was fired up, the pitcher got a little rattled and it allowed us to get a few more runs.”
Indeed. Antigua scored on a wild pitch three pitches later. Austin Kim also scored on a wild pitch, and Michael Battle forced in a run with a bases-loaded walk for a 6-2 Squeeze lead.
The Rebels tried to answer by building a rally of their own in the top of the fourth. Jason Lee walked two batters to start the inning before Clyde called on D’Adolf, who promptly walked the first batter he faced to load the bases.
“He’s struggled a bit so we like to put him in those situations where he’s under pressure to reinforce that he can get out of that,” Clyde said. “He’s got a very good slider and a very good fastball, so it’s a little more confidence for him if he can throw strikes and get ahead in counts. He can be a very good relief pitcher.”
D’Adolf, a hard-throwing 5-9 righty, never wavered. He got Silas Geiger to line out to third, he struck out Gio Romano and got Joseph Guerra to ground out to short to escape danger.
“I was a little bit nervous but at the end I just pulled through and did what I could to help my team,” said D’Adolf, a sophomore at Teaneck. “I threw mostly fastballs, a few sliders and I mixed in a splitter once or twice. I think the pressure is gonna help me and I was using that to my advantage to do a better job.”
The Rebels scratched out a run against D’Adolf in the fifth when Alex Niu scored on a wild pitch, but a three-run deficit would be as close as they could get.
D’Adolf pitched two innings and allowed one run on one hit, two walks and one hit batsman with two strikeouts.
Righty Tillman Schroeder started for Squeeze and yielded two runs on three hits and two walks with four strikeouts over three innings. Battle pitched a scoreless sixth inning and struck out one.
For the Rebels, which finished the weekend 1-2, starter Christopher Dorsi pitched two innings and allowed two runs on three walks and a hit batsman with one strikeout. Fotis Seretis allowed four runs on one hit and three walks. Patrick Jewell pitched two scoreless innings while allowing three walks and striking out two. Giger threw one scoreless inning and struck out two.
Squeeze claimed an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second when Sean Sailer scored on a wild pitch.
The Rebels countered with two runs in the top of the third when Michael Allyn drove in a run with a single through the right side, and Dalton Dougherty stole home when Allyn gave himself up between first and second.