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OCEAN CITY — It might be difficult to find a hotter Cape-Atlantic League hitter than Jordan Sweeney. A day after slugging a pair of home runs in a win over Oakcrest, the Egg Harbor Township sophomore went 3 for 5 with two doubles and five RBIs to pace the Eagles to an 8-2 victory over Ocean City on Thursday. “He’s just hitting the ball hard right now,” EHT coach Bryan Carmichael said. “He loves playing the game, and he’s having a lot of fun.” Sweeney had the game’s biggest hit in the fourth inning, when he lined a pitch into the gap in left-center field with the bases loaded for a three-run double. The hit turned a 2-1 EHT deficit into a 4-2 lead. “I was just trying to hit the ball hard and make something happen,” Sweeney said. “The pitch was in the middle of the plate, and I was able to drive it in the gap.” In the sixth, Sweeney followed Andrew Fowler’s double with one of his own to deep center. And in the seventh, Sweeney ripped an RBI single to left. “I’m so confident up there right now,” Sweeney said with a smile. “Everything’s looking clean to me at the moment.” Through 15 games, Sweeney is batting .479 with and 33 RBIs. Thirteen of his 23 hits have gone for extra bases, including seven home runs. “We saw flashes of this last year when he played for us as a freshman,” Carmichael said. “People have to remember he’s only a sophomore. But he’s really doing a lot of good things.” Equally impressive in the victory was EHT pitcher Drew Hickman. He tossed a complete game with eight strikeouts. He gave up eight hits, but his only walk of the game came with two outs in the seventh inning. Hickman was able to get out of trouble a couple times with the help of his infield, which turned a pair of inning-ending double plays, both times with runners on first and third. Hickman improved to 3-1. “Drew needed to do that,” Carmichael said. “That was his best performance of the season. He was really commanding the strike zone and he attacked hitters. He wasn’t doing that as much early in the year, so it was refreshing to see him throw the ball the way he did. ” Kyle Transue had an RBI single in the first inning, and Jayson Amoroso added an RBI single in the seventh for the Eagles (12-3), who won their fourth straight and the eighth in their last nine games. “I couldn’t be happier,” Carmichael said. “But we also could be 15-0. In our three losses we didn’t play our best baseball at all, but then again, who does in every single game? We’ve tried to learn from the losses. We’ve talked about the mistakes and gotten better from them.” Matt Lashley hit a two-run single in the third inning to account for all of the scoring for Ocean City (7-7). The Raiders hurt themselves with four errors. Their pitchers also walked nine and hit two other batters. “Walks and errors doomed us,” Ocean City coach Craig Mensinger said. “And you have to give them credit because every mistake we made, they pounded us for it. “They’re a really good team. They’re the most talented team we’ve faced so far.” Matt Fumo went 2 for 4 with a double and a run scored for Ocean City. Parker Bristol also doubled. Egg Harbor Township 100 401 2 – 8 8 1 Ocean City 002 000 0 – 2 8 4 2B —Sweeney 2, Fowler EHT; Bristol, Fumo OC. WP – Hickman (3-1) 8K; B. Lashley (2-1) 2K. Records— EHT 12-3; OC 7-7. Walk-off walk completes four-run rally for EHTThey heeded his advice and won Wednesday’s game without having to put a ball in play in the seventh inning. EHT scored four runs on four walks and three hit batters to come back and beat Oakcrest 9-8 in a Cape-Atlantic League inter-division game Wednesday. The Eagles took advantage of the small strike zone established throughout the game in a high-pressure situation. “We made them throw a lot of pitches, and that’s a part of the game,” Carmichael said. Going into the seventh, Carmichael turned to his coaches for a game plan and one suggested they take pitches. “I said, ‘well, we haven’t taken (strikes) all game, and we’ve been squaring balls up,’ so we collectively decided to take until we got a strike,” Carmichael said. “And as you see, we benefited, and it paid off.” Oakcrest walked the first two batters of the seventh before changing pitchers. After a strikeout, Connor Agostino was hit by a pitch to load the bases. On the very next pitch, Robbie Petracci was hit to drive in a run and make it 8-6. Dante DiPalma and Angel Murray were walked and hit by a pitch, respectively, to tie the game. After another strikeout for the second out, leadoff hitter Andrew Fowler walked to bring in Petracci for the winning run. “(Oakcrest) hit a couple guys, walked a couple guys, so I wasn’t going to go up there to be selfish and swing first pitch like I did in my first at-bat,” Fowler, 18, said. “So I knew I was going to take a strike no matter what, and it happened to be four straight balls and happened to win the game.” Exciting sophomore outfielder and Wednesday’s starting pitcher Jordan Sweeney went 2 for 3 with a solo and two-run home run in his first two at-bats. He also drew the walk that led off the seventh inning. “I was definitely going to take a strike,” Sweeney, 16, said of his seventh inning at-bat. “I was being very selective up there. I didn’t get anything to hit, and obviously neither did anyone else. We wanted to go into the inning working counts and got the job done at the end.” But it was the bottom four of EHT’s lineup that came up huge in the sixth and seventh innings and provided big at-bats. Petracci was 2 for 3 with two runs and two RBIs, DiPalma had an RBI and hit the ball hard three times and Cory Smith doubled and drove in a run. Murray also reached base safely four times, drawing two walks and getting hit by two pitches. Relief pitcher Mike Dodd pitched a perfect top of the seventh and earned the win. “I tell these kids all the time that we have 16 kids here that at any given time can be called in to duty to come up with a clutch hit or step up and pitch” Carmichael said. It was a back-and-forth game through the first four innings. Oakcrest led 1-0 and 2-1 on errors in the first and third innings. Donnie Stone hit a three-run homer in a four-run fourth inning that gave the Falcons a 6-4 lead. Jailen Heard scored on an error, and Alec Rodriguez drove in Heard with a double to build an 8-4 lead in the sixth. EHT got a run back in the bottom of the sixth on an error before completing the comeback in the seventh. Oakcrest coach Scott Olson hopes Wednesday’s game is easy to forget. “The good thing for us is we schedule a lot of games to play,” Olson said. “There’s nothing we’re going to do or talk about. We’re just going to move on to tomorrow.” Oakcrest 101 402 0—8 8 2 Egg Harbor Twp 103 001 4—9 6 4 2B—Rodriguez O; Smith, Petracci EHT. HR—Stone O; Sweeney 2 EHT. WP—Dodd (1-0) 1k. LP—Markley 2k. Records—Oakcrest 9-7, EHT 11-3. Contact: 609-272-7210 [email protected] Twitter @ACPress_Russo Contact: 609-272-7210 [email protected] Twitter @ACPress_Russo http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/sports/local/highschool/baseball/walk-off-walk-completes-four-run-rally-for-eht/article_0a8488e0-f523-5970-8873-a26b99de971a.html SNJ Today highlights of South Jersey Group IV Power Points Leader EHT battling Millville.....5/3/2017 http://www.snjtoday.com/category/317964/sports?utm_source=SocialMedia&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=Sports%20Newscast%2005.03.17
MILLVILLE –
Looking at the schedule, it was another close loss for the Millville baseball team on Tuesday, a 9-8 defeat at the hands of Cape-Atlantic League-American Division rival Egg Harbor. It is the fourth straight loss for the Thunderbolts, three of which came by a single run with the other by just a two-run margin. Yet this one was different. Egg Harbor (10-3, 4-2 division) built a 9-0 lead through four and a half innings, only to see Millville storm back with eight runs over the final three innings. University of North Carolina commit and projected MLB Draft pick Buddy Kennedy stood at the plate with the tying and winning runs on base. Kennedy already blasted a line drive home run and a RBI-single in the previous innings. An epic comeback victory appeared within grasp. Yet, Eagles reliever Drew Hickman got the blue-chip prospect to fly out to right field on the first pitch and Egg Harbor hung on for the win. However, if it is possible, the defeat Tuesday could have an unseen benefit. "I think it feels different than the previous losses," Millville coach Roy Hallenbecksaid. "We've had a few bad days in a row. This one got real bad, real fast. I was really happy to see how our guys responded to that. When you're playing a close game, you're battling all the way through. You're fighting all the way through. A game like today, it gave our guys a chance to let up and they didn't. I'm proud of that." Cory Kessler earned the win for Egg Harbor by allowing just three runs over five innings of work. Egg Harbor's Jordan Sweeney went 2-for-2 with two doubles and two RBI while reaching base in all four plate appearances. Clean-up hitter Cory Smith had two hits, two RBI and two runs scored as well. "Our hitting is what we expected to be our strength, but we've also been playing really good defense and pitching well," said Sweeney. "Now that the hitting is finally getting there and coming around, we feel like we'll be dangerous in the playoffs." Millville began its rally in the fifth with Kennedy's solo shot and a two-run homer by Nick Grotti. It then loaded the bases with nobody out to begin the bottom of the sixth before a RBI walk by Hunter Sibley and RBI single by Kennedy made it 9-5. But Egg Harbor reliever Mike Dodd induced an inning-ending double play ground ball to minimize the damage. In the seventh, Millville put its first two runners on base. After a sacrifice fly and a RBI double from Tyler Ramos, Sibley reached on an error that scored another Millville run to make it 9-8 and bring Kennedy to the plate. "I was just trying to hit the outside part of the plate, because I know he can drive basically everything else, and make him (fly out to right field)," said Hickman, a senior who has been a starting pitcher the last two seasons, but did pitch in relief during his sophomore year. "This wins means a lot for us. I think the last six years we’ve been 1-12 against (Millville). Coach (Bryan Carmichael) let us know that before the year, so we've been wanting to get some wins back." Egg Harbor scored single runs in each of the first three innings and Kessler managed to work around Thunderbolt base runners in Millville's first three at-bats. Kessler got a key strikeout to end the bottom of the third after Millville loaded the bases with three singles. The Eagles kept the momentum and broke things open with three runs in each of the fourth and fifth innings. Smith had a two-run single in the top of the fourth, followed by an RBI single by Connor Agostino. In the fifth inning, Robbie Petracci roped an RBI double, which was followed by Sweeney's two-run double — his second two-bagger of the game. Egg Harbor plays three games in the next three days beginning Wednesday with Oakcrest (9-6). Millville (6-6, 3-4) looks to snap its now four-game losing streak Wednesday against Buena (8-7).0 |