Horace Greeley Routs the Patriots at Dutchess Stadium
Quaker win vs. John Jay.
Horace Greeley baseball coach Anthony Marino admits some of his Quaker teams through the years haven’t always been able to fight through adversity as well as he’d like.
“In the years past,” he was saying late Friday evening, “we’ve had teams it seemed like once we got down it was like the game was almost out of reach. And even if we scored a bunch of runs, we kind of, like, stopped.”
Marino is hoping his 2015 club is a bit different, and perhaps what he saw at Dutchess Stadium on Friday night will convince him it is. The Quakers shook off a shaky start in the first inning and went on to crush the John Jay Patriots 9-2 under the lights. Quinn Carter provided four extra-base hits and knocked in a pair of runs as Greeley improved to 2-0 this season.
“This group’s been playing for a long time and they’re experienced,” said Marino about his players. “So I’m looking forward to this year. I’ve been looking forward to this year since the last out in North Rockland last year. We’ve been trying to instill in these kids the attitude of ‘get another, get another, you know, keep going. Don’t stop. And if we’re down, don’t stop. Keep coming back.’”
Against the host Patriots, the Quakers got a chance to show their coach they could handle some adversity shortly after taking the field in the bottom of the first inning. John Jay leadoff batter Antonio Pragana ripped the first pitch from Justin Schachter into center field for a hit and wound up at third base when the ball was misplayed.
But Schachter, who gave the Quakers five solid innings, was not the least bit unnerved. He struck out two consecutive batters and got out of the early jam by retiring cleanup hitter Mike Arboleda on a chopper to second base.
“It’s tough,” said Marino about the early two-base error, “but the key thing was our pitcher really pitched his butt off and left him there. That was important because, in the beginning, you can see in some people’s faces, it was like, ‘Uh oh, here it comes.’ And, really, he took the ball, he did it himself. He got the two strikeouts. It was great. He shut the door and really set a tone.”
So instead, it was the Quakers who grabbed an early lead in the second inning as Carter blasted a one-out triple to the gap in deep left-center field and soon scored on Joe Raguso’s ground ball to short. John Jay took advantage of some Greeley miscues in the field to tie the game in the third, but again Schachter pitched out of a jam, stranding runners at second and third by retiring Arboledo on pop out to third and Matt Jones on a liner to center.
The Patriots left another runner at third base in the bottom of the fourth inning before the Quakers took the lead for good in the fifth. Carter led off by doubling down the left-field line and was moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Raguso. Paul Gadaleta walked, stole second and, one out later, Mack Lauder drove home two runs by ripping a 2-2 pitch into center for a hit.
Greeley added three more runs in the sixth against the second of three Patriot pitchers as Carter drove home Adam Quine with a double to right and Raguso followed with a two-run single to center field.
Liam Walker came on in relief of Schachter in the bottom of the inning and pitched the final two frames for the Quakers, yielding one hit and one walk. Greeley all but sealed the outcome by adding three insurance runs in the top of the seventh, highlighted by Lauder’s long triple to the gap in left-center and Carter’s fourth hit of the night, an RBI double.
“We hit the balls in the gap, we hit some doubles, hit some triples, made some key, productive outs,” said Marino as the lights were being turned out inside the minor-league ballpark. “It was a really good game top to bottom.”
The Quakers, who improved to 3-0 by beating Carmel in extra innings the next afternoon, only had two hits through the first four innings against the Patriots. But they erupted for seven more over the final three innings and Marino, who also coaches wrestling and can sense surrender, could tell the onslaught had an impact on John Jay’s players.
“I don’t mean it to sound in a negative way, but everybody has a breaking point and it seemed like we took the wind out of their sails when we got those couple of tack-on runs,” he said. “It was very important for us and our mentality to just keep it on ‘em.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
Read more of Andy’s full bio here.
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