HATFIELD – After taking a commanding 8-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh inning, the South Hadley baseball team escaped Smith Academy’s comeback effort to win 8-5, Wednesday.
The Falcons No. 5 batter Jack Hession led off the bottom of the seventh with a single. That prompted Tigers’ coach Matt Foley to remove starting pitcher Adam Pilachowski from the game in favor Nate Poirier.
Three hits, two walks and an error later, the Tigers (4-1) found themselves only up four with one out and the tying run coming to the plate in the form of Kevin Banas.
Ryan Mooney – who took over for Poirier a few batters earlier – got Banas to strike out swinging. The next batter, Ben Bruscoe, flew out to right field to end the game.
Through four innings both teams looked evenly matched. Falcons (0-3) pitcher John Ferrara made up for the four errors his team had committed to that point by striking out seven Tigers.
On the other side, Pilachowski held the Falcons to only three hits while the Tigers’ offense was able to put up two runs.
By the end of the fourth inning, the Tigers held onto a narrow 2-1 lead.
“That was the first time we had seen a lefty this year, and he was really bearing us hard on the inside corner,” Foley said. “The first few innings, we had trouble figuring him out. I think we did a good job of grinding out at-bats and driving his pitch count up a bit.”
The Tigers were able to break through in the fifth inning by demonstrating good execution and situational awareness.
After leadoff hitter Justin Kleeberg opened the inning with a single to right, James Foley reached base on a push bunt up the first base line that Ferrara couldn’t handle.
The No. 3 hitter, Mario Olivera, then put a sacrifice bunt to third setting the Tigers’ up with second and third and one man out.
“Generally you don’t always see your No. 3 hitter bunting, but he’s a lefty and good bunter,” Foley said.
Foley added that he was hoping Olivera would beat out the throw, but the opportunity for a sacrifice made the play a win-win situation.
Both Kleeberg and Foley came around to score when Pilachowksi tripled to deep right-center field.
“I was seeing a lot of curveballs,” Pilachowski said. “It just felt like our first at bat, I was a little ahead of it but after that seeing the curveball, I was getting used to it, so I kind of just put my bat up there and smacked that.”
Pilachowski later scored on a triple by Mooney.
“Well, I have a lot of guys in the top half of that lineup that are pretty good baseball guys,” Foley said. “They understand, they’ve been playing for a long, and they understand situational baseball.”
The Tigers tacked on three more runs in the seventh inning.
Pilachowski’s pitching was just as important as his bat.
In six innings of work, Pilachowski only allowed three hits, one run and one walk while striking out six.
“I’m a ground ball pitcher, so I just want to throw it down the middle or down low at the knees,” Pilachowski said. “I’m not a strikeout pitcher, so my goal coming into the game was to settle in. My first inning wasn’t really the best but after that it was kind of just settle in a little bit and calm down.”
Pilachowski would not have had the success that he did if it wasn’t for the defense behind him.
The Tigers only committed one error compared to the Falcons’ six.
“There were a few balls that kind of exploded there (in the first inning) and I really thought we did a good job of positioning ourselves differently and James (Foley) made some good plays out there,” Foley said. “And Colin at third was outstanding today and that helps the pitcher, I mean when you can make plays like that.”
“I just want to throw strikes,” Pilachowski said. “I’ll let him hit it because I trust my defense.”