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Flash strike at Sulak Field
(by Erin Patricia Griffiths - July 01, 2008)
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Photos By Robert S. Pytel
The Flash’s Trace McDermott tags the Raven’s James Puglia for an out.
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When the two American Legion teams in the Pascack Valley region met on Sulak Field on Monday, June 23, it was nothing short of an explosive baseball game with strong competition on both sides. Although the Pascack Valley Ravens fell behind early, they battled back to lose by only one run. It was a redeeming victory for the Park Ridge Flash whose former 6-0 record was blemished by two consecutive losses in the games prior.
In the bottom of the first inning, two errors by the Raven’s second baseman, Ryan Hourigan, brought in two additional runs when Nick Ramagli hit a homerun over the left field fence to give Park Ridge a 3-0 lead.
Pascack Valley responded in the second when James Moran hit a homerun down the right field line to lead off the inning. Despite walking two players later in the inning, Pitcher Blake Crouch was able to get out of second without giving up any more runs.
With James Puglia on the mound in the bottom of the second, David Wood and Kevin Herget combined to get back the run that Crouch gave up. After Wood hit a two-out single to left field and stole second, Herget’s ground ball single between short and third drove him in giving the Flash a 4-1 lead.
After the Ravens failed to score in the top of the third, Matt Moreno led off the bottom of the inning with a homerun. Facing a four run deficit, Pascack Valley replaced their starting pitcher Puglia with Sean Liddy. The Raven’s allowed Trace McDermott to score later in that inning on an error by shortstop Max Hourigan, giving Park Ridge a 6-1 edge on the scoreboard.
Again, the Ravens rebounded from the bottom of the third inning with a homerun from Alex Caravella, narrowing the Park Ridge’s lead to four, but Crouch retired the side with two strikeouts and a line out to second base.
After retiring the side in order in the bottom of the fourth, Ben Luderer’s two run homerun to right brought the score to 6-4. The game was temporarily halted when Moran hit a hard ground ball that ricocheted off Park Ridge’s pitcher before heading to second base. “My legs are beat up. It is just bruised. I’ve gotten hurt a lot, so it’s not a big deal,” Crouch said after the game.
The game continued with another run for the Raven’s when Mike Soumas looped a single into right field, scoring Moran from third base. The Flash replaced Crouch after the score reached 6-5, putting Stephen Montalto on the mound. He retired the next batter with a strikeout.
Matt Moreno led off the bottom of the fifth with a lightning strike, hitting his second homerun of the night. Liddy struck out the next three batters to retire the side without any additional runs getting in for the Flash.
With the score 7-5 as the game entered the sixth inning, the Ravens knew they had to lock in and score at least three runs to take the lead. Max Blank reduced the lead to one run when he was brought home on Max Hourigan’s single past the shortstop. With the tying run on second base, Park Ridge brought in Ramagli to pitch. Puglia’s hard line drive to left, which looked like it might plate the tying run, was caught. Ramagli got the next batter to pop out and then struck out Moran to end the scoring threat.
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Third baseman Matt Moreno makes a long throw to first base.
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With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Herget dunked a single into right field. Chris Picyk walked, putting runners on first and second. But Liddy was able to escape the inning unscathed when he got Ramagli to ground into a fielder’s choice to short for the third out.
Ramagli struck out the side to close out the game, and the team celebrated its 7-6 win over the Pascack Valley Raven’s. “I like pressure, I like being in the spotlight and being in control of things at the end, so I was glad that I came in. I just felt pretty fired up. I felt like I was throwing really hard,” said Ramagli. “It is a really good baseball team over there, and we lost our last two games in the seventh, so it was nice to close this one out.”
Flash Coach Tom McDermott was pleased with the success over a strong competitor. “I feel pretty good about today’s game. I think it was a good team win. We had nine kids in the slot and another four came off the bench. The whole season we’ve had pretty good competition. All in all [we’re] feeling pretty good.”
With two home runs in the game, Moreno was pleased with his success and contributions in the win. “It is exciting. It felt good. I just concentrated going into the game and had a good BP [batting practice] session.”
Despite the loss, Raven’s Coach Mike Hourigan was pleased with his team. “I think we battled back. We had a tough first two innings. They scored five runs. Our defense wasn’t behind the pitching,” said Hourigan.
“Sean Liddy came in, took control pitching,” he continued. “We came back and we started hitting the ball. I was proud of these kids, they did a good job. Park Ridge is a very good team, we are the two teams in the league, I think, to beat, and it was a good game overall.”
Erin Patricia Griffiths' e-mail address is GriffithsE@northjersey.com.
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