A one-game tournament of champions
-
- April
- 26
Somers had a great idea in the offseason. The Section 1 Class A champion would host an early April showcase featuring every sectional champ (minus Class D Solomon Schechter). Keio would play Hastings and Somers would play North Rockland. Then April showers washed out the infield and the showcase. The two big schools postponed until today.
North Rockland used the game as a breakout. The Red Raiders scored 10 in the final three innings to win 11-5. Will Sheehan was unstoppable, going 4 for 5 with a homer and four RBI. Manny Martinez (that’s him wearing a dirt mask in the photo) was 3 for 3 and Anthony Gokey drove in four. North Rockland hasn’t scored like this against a good team all year. But it’s got 20 over its last two games, so maybe the hitting surge it enjoyed in the postseason is coming early. So coach Tom Lynch hopes. Without power it’ll be hard to make another playoff run. There are too many top teams in AA.
The best show was Sheehan, who showed signs of shaking off his season-long slump. Everybody knows the kid can hit. He bats third for a reason. But the fact is he hasn’t hit. He had to be wondering what was wrong. Today he did nothing but hit, and suddenly he leads the team in RBI. He’s had to deal with a move to right field, the result of his position fight with catcher George Wargo. Wargo won the starting catcher spot, which forced Sheehan to DH, and now the outfield. Lynch said he’ll stay there.
“Me and George have been competing at catching since little league.,” Sheehan said. “It’s always been switching off between DHing and that. This year George is playing great back there. I have no problems with playing right field because I play right field in the summer too when he catches.”
Frank Lanzano, making his second start, got the win. He’ll see more action now that North Rockland’s schedule is busier. No more pitching Ryan Fasano and Nick Viohl every other day. Dan Tracy took his second loss, which is one more than he had last year. His ERA is still great though.
“Tracy’s throwing as well as he possibly can,” Tuskers coach Joe Wootten said. “We’re making errors. We’re making errors this year. Error leads to more pitches, more pitches leads to more fatigue, ball’s up in the zone, they’re going to hit a little bit more.”
This entry was posted
on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 7:09 pm by Jake Thomases.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: 
| 
Print
| 
Email
Josh Thomson has done some of everything since joining The Journal News in
March 2003. He began working for the Gannett weeklies during the winter of
2002 as a freelance writer. He joined the daily staff soon after and has
since covered various high school and pro sports. Away from sportswriting,
Josh lives in Westchester and spends his free time either with his
fiancee, Sarah, or expertly managing his various championship-winning
fantasy sports teams. He's visited 21 major-league baseball stadiums and
insists that Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are the best by far. Josh
graduated from Carmel High School in 1998, then went to Boston University,
where, in 2002, he received a degree in communications with a minor in
history. 
Jake Thomases has covered baseball, hockey, girls basketball, and girls soccer for the Journal News since arriving in 2003. He previously interned at The Poughkeepsie Journal while attending Vassar College. He is socking money away under his mattress to buy the Knicks, at which time he will trade Jerome James to Cleveland for a ham sandwich.
what is with that picture? looks like a red hermit crab crawling back to the ocean..