Langan Baseball’s Kyle McCarthy leads off third base after his triple.
By Will Harrigan
The Tri-State Arsenal New York 16U squad did not get off to a great start in its Garden State Invitational debut earlier in the week.
But one of the great beauties of baseball is that with every day comes a new game, and a new opportunity.
Arsenal’s performance on Wednesday certainly was night and day compared to its opener.
Terrific pitching and defense led the way for Arsenal, as it notched a 2-1 victory over Jersey Shore-based Langan Baseball at Diamond Nation.
Tri-State Arsenal New York is now 1-1 on the week, while Langan dropped its debut game. In its first game, the Arsenal were mercy-ruled by the Morris County Cubs 16U squad.
“It was a big improvement for us, and honestly a much needed one for us,” said Arsenal coach Joe Salinitri. “We know what type of competition we see here and have to match it.”
The instant turnaround started with right-handed pitcher Ben Ferrero, who pitched a complete game hive-hitter to lead his squad to victory. Topping out in the mid-70s and painting the corners relentlessly, Ferrero was in control all game.
The little run support Ferrero would need came in the second inning.
Tri-State Arsenal New York’s Ben Ferrero gets ready to fire a pitch to the plate.
Michael Fosorile, Bob Engelhardt, and Jake Parpon each singled to fully set the table with the bases loaded and no one out.
Evan Waldbauer laced an opposite field single to right field to get Arsenal on the board. Vincent Genovese would promptly follow that up by grounding out to third, scoring Engelhardt and doubling the lead to 2-0.
Arsenal would strand two more men in scoring position, and in the sixth, they’d load the bases with one out but came out empty.
“We did enough today, but we left quite a few runs on the field,” said Salinitri. “We are lucky that it did not bite us.”
Poor baserunning aided Ferrero a half inning earlier, as Langan Baseball had a runner retired on a rare 7-5 force out, which was followed by a pick off on the next pitch to instantly extinguish a budding Langan rally on the basepaths.
A one-out single by Jake Nunn got the scoring rally off Ferrero started in the fifth for Langan.
Two batters later, and with two outs, Kyle McCarthy would belt a triple into the left-center field gap to plate Nunn and bring Langan to within 2-1. Ferrero would recover to induce a flyout to left field and escape further trouble.
Langan Baseball threatened again in the sixth, putting runners at the corners with one out. But like a magician, Ferrero would recover and follow a strikeout with a pop up to first to get out of it.
Ferrero would go on to pitch a 1-2-3 seventh to seal the deal for Tri-State Arsenal.
“Ben is a gamer. He was in control almost the entire game and pitched to contact,” said Salinitri.