East Coast Elite’s Giromy Vasquez is tagged out at home by Golden Spikes catcher James Robertson.
By Rich Bevensee
Somewhere inside the hallways of Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, Anthony Maselli is enjoying a dual celebration.
Maselli is the head coach of the Golden Spikes 16U baseball team, but he didn’t make the trip south with his team to Diamond Nation in Flemington this weekend because he and his wife were expecting the birth of their first child.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t have one eye glued to his GameChanger app, and his Glastonbury-based ballclub gave him reason to cheer even before his family grew by one.
James Robertson blasted a grand slam home run, Waylon Hribernik pitched his best game of the year and Golden Spikes gifted baby Maselli an 8-4, five-inning victory over East Coast Elite of South Salem, N.Y., in the Halloween Mash on Saturday at ‘The Nation.’
“He always watches our games and we were texting him mid-game,” said John Robertson, who went 2-for-3 with a double. “He cares a lot about the team.”
“If I know him, it’s probably really hard to concentrate on one and not the other,” Golden Spikes assistant coach Mike Hribernik said of Maselli. “I imagine that he’s got one eye on his expectant wife and one eye on GameChanger.”
Golden Spikes (22-10) took control of this ballgame in the fourth inning thanks to an eight-run rally fueled by six hits and three walks. The big blast in that rally was Robertson’s grand slam, which came two pitches after East Coast’s Emmanuel Walton was relieved by Jordan Scheier and gave his team a 6-1 lead.
“I was looking to attack the ball, put something in play, because anything hit hard is a run,” said Robertson, who has three homers this fall and nine since the spring. “He gave me a middle-middle fastball and I got a lot of it and I hit it pretty hard. He had to throw me a strike because it was bases loaded and 1-0 so I was looking for a strike.”
Robertson and his identical twin brother, John, combined to go 4-for-6 and collected four of the team’s seven hits. They are sophomores at Glastonbury High and they both played varsity this past spring as freshmen, James as a pinch-hitter and John as a pitcher.
“They have nice, easy swings, they’re short to the ball, and they generate a lot of bat speed,” Hribernik said. “You saw that on display here today.”
The coach’s son, Waylon Hribernik, a 5-11 righty and also a sophomore at Glastonbury, pitched a complete game and called it one his better outings of the fall. He allowed four runs (two earned) on eight hits and two walks with four strikeouts using his fastball, curveball, slider and changeup.
In the bottom of the second inning Hribernik surrendered a two-out, solo home run to Layhoner Juan and back-to-back walks to Walton and Tyler Reyes before his father made a mound visit.
“He came out and I told him I’m missing up and I asked him what can I do to fix that,” Hribernik said. “He told me to get on top of the ball and get a longer stride. The next pitch I did exactly as he said and it worked.”
Indeed. Hribernik struck out the next batter to escape the inning with his team trailing 1-0 and he retired six of the next eight batters. His father noted that he respected the fact that his son has grown enough to ask for help.
“I will offer advice sometimes but today I didn’t have to ask. In fact he usually asks,” Coach Hribernik said. “He was a little bit under the ball with his release point, so he made an adjustment to stay over top of the ball. I like the adjustment he made and the next couple innings after that were zeroes.
“Yes, these guys are starting to show some maturity.”
With the Golden Spikes trailing, 1-0, in the top of the fourth, Hribernik led off with a base hit, stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and Finn Mraz singled him home. Mraz later scored on a wild pitch to give his team a 2-1 lead.
After consecutive walks to Hayden Nolan, Lucas DiMartino and Jake Pirog, the lineup rotated back to leadoff hitter James Robertson, who launched his ninth homer of the year high into the left field netting. Hribernik came up again and delivered a two-out, two-run single for an 8-1 lead.
James Robertson is greeted at home by his Golden Spikes teammates after smashing a grand slam in the fourth inning at Diamond Nation on Saturday.
East Coast tried crawling back into the picture. In the bottom of the fourth, Edwin Fernandez led off with a triple and scored on a Navid Gonzalez groundout.
In East Coast’s final at bat in the fifth, Walton reached on an infield error before Hribernik recorded a pair of strikeouts. Walton eventually scored on an outfield throwing error following a Cameron Weiner base hit, one of three straight hits with two outs. Brandon Delmonte doubled in Weiner before Hribernik retired the final batter with a groundout.
For East Coast, Walton allowed five runs in 3⅓ innings on four hits and seven walks with one strikeout. In relief, Scheier yielded three runs (one earned) in 1⅔ innings on three hits and one walk with one strikeout.