Strong Pitching Leads the Bears in the Booster Club Tourney
The Briarcliff baseball team couldn’t have asked for anything more from its senior starting pitchers this past weekend.
With southpaw Matt Juvelier no-hitting Irvington on Friday afternoon, then righty Quinten Cooleen limiting Putnam Valley to just three hits over six innings 24 hours later, the host Bears cruised to their third consecutive title at the annual Booster Club Tournament.
“Obviously the backbone of our team is our strong pitching,” said Bears head coach John Schrader shortly after the final out of his team’s 5-1 victory over the Tigers in the championship game late Saturday afternoon. “Between our lefty, Matt Juvelier, throwing yesterday and no-hitting Irvington and then Quinten today, both of them excellent jobs.”
On a day that began with a hint of summer and ended with a reminder of winter, the Bears jumped out to an early three-run lead against Putnam Valley and never had much to worry about afterwards with Cooleen in command on the mound. First baseman Noah Campo provided run-scoring doubles in each of the first two innings to power the Briarcliff offense and was later named to the all-tournament team.
”Clutch hits, overall teamwork and pitching,” said Schrader, reciting the now 6-1 Bears’ recipe for success. “Yeah, we were able to get a couple runs quick on ‘em and that was beneficial.”
Cooleen had the unenviable task of following Juvelier’s MVP performance a day earlier. He stranded a Tiger runner at second base in the opening inning, then the Bears used consecutive two-base hits to get on the scoreboard first. With one out, Joe Scanga crushed a double to the gap in left-center field. Moments later, he scampered across home plate on the first of Campo’s RBI doubles, this one a line drive down the left-field line.
Luca Lombardi, who drove in three runs in Friday’s 7-1 win over Irvington and joined Campo on the all-tourney team, followed with a base on balls. Spencer McCann’s line single to left loaded the bases, but Putnam Valley starter John Millicker got out of big trouble by retiring John Gross and Mike Hardy to end the inning.
Millicker’s problems were hardly over, though, as the Bears added a couple more runs in the bottom of the second inning. Jason Oppong laced a one-out single to center field, then raced to third when Jack Ryan dumped a single into right. A wild pickoff throw by Millicker to first base scored Oppong and moved Ryan to second. With two outs, Campo came through by belting a long double to left that plated Ryan to give Briarcliff a 3-0 lead.
Cooleen retired the side in order in the third inning, but had trouble finding the plate in the fourth. Three walks loaded the bases and the Tigers avoided an inning-ending double play when the turn-two throw to first was dropped. But Cooleen left the three runners aboard as he retired Franky Curran on a soft liner toward short that was snagged by Ryan.
“No, I was pretty confident our guys could do the job, pitching-wise and defensively, after that,” said Schrader, asked later if he was concerned the drop at first base might prove costly to his team. “Yes, that can actually snowball into the worst things. But obviously it didn’t for us today.”
In the bottom of the fourth, Briarcliff stretched its lead to 4-0 when Oppong, leading off, was hit by a pitch, stole second base, then came around to score on Scanga’s single to right field. Putnam Valley’s Angelo Milano opened the fifth with a single to left, but the inning ended as Matt Carlsen lined into a double play.
The Bears threatened in the bottom of the fifth with Gross leading off and getting plunked by a pitch for the second time. Hardy then walked, but Carlsen, pitching in relief, retired the next three batters in order as Briarcliff stranded two runners for the second straight inning.
The Tigers, who had defeated Hen Hud in their opening-round game, finally got on the board against Cooleen in the sixth inning. Mike Gaitan led off with a walk and, one out later, moved to third on a booming double by Dan Cavanagh. Brian McBride followed with a line-drive single to left that scored Gaitan and sent Cavanagh to third. But Cooleen shut the door by striking out Alex O’Brien and getting Curran to pop up near the mound.
Briarcliff used some small ball to get its final run of the day in the bottom of the sixth. Scanga and Campo both reached on infield hits. Lombardi moved them over on a grounder to second, then McCann collected an RBI with a fielder’s choice chopper to short.
After throwing 102 pitches, some of them in the early warm sunshine but most in the cold and wind that quickly moved in, Cooleen’s day was done after the sixth. Ryan Nieto took over to start the seventh. He gave up a one-out double, but ended the game by striking out Gaitan looking, much to the delight of the Briarcliff fans who had to endure the plummeting temperature.
‘Yeah, it was really warm, sunny, hot, and then all of a sudden the temperature dropped, the sun dropped,” said Schrader. “It got windy, it’s a little chilly. But we persevere and we don’t worry about the weather. We just go out and play ball.”
So now the Bears gear up for two big games this week with archrival Pleasantville, a team still unbeaten this season. Briarcliff seems to also have plenty of momentum at the moment, which Schrader thinks began thanks to a loss to Croton in the second game of the year.
“Very good spot,” he said of the Bears’ current situation. “Never like to say a loss is ever good, but that first loss against Croton probably made us that much better of a team.”
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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