Tigers Defeat Unicorn Behind Strong Arm of Sophomore Chris Medeot
It was a tale of two games for the White Plains Tigers baseball team in their opening week of action. They began the 2012 season with a horrible 8-0 lose to Pelham. In this game the Tigers didn’t get any hits, committed four errors and starting pitcher Stephen Schiavone had to come out of the game due to injury.
The Tigers rebounded on Saturday with a 3-2 win against The Keio Academy of New York Unicorns. Despite the win over the Unicorns, Tigers head coach Marcel Galligani wasn’t overly impressed with his team’s overall effort that day.
“Not good. Obviously it’s nice to win a ball game, but I’m not pleased whatsoever and I don’t think they are pleased by the way they played. We were terrible defensively (The Tigers committed three errors versus the Unicorns), but I felt Chris did a phenomenal job on the mound,” said Galligani.
At the plate The Tigers still looked a little weak against the Unicorns. The two hardest hits balls of game were by Stephen Schiavone (a fly out to centerfield in the first inning) and by Juan Payero (a triple in the sixth inning). The triple by Payero ended up leading to the winning run against the Unicorns.
Galligani believes the Tigers will improve their hitting soon. “I think we have a couple guys in the lineup right now who are having some quality at bats,” said Galligani. “Some guys aren’t putting it together yet. I’m sure they’re going to. Once we get a few guys in the lineup kind of clicking I think we’re going to be okay. I think we’re going to be okay offensively.”
Their first run in the game came in the top of the second inning from Alex Gallo. After the Unicorns tied the game at one apiece in the bottom of the third the Tigers went ahead 2-1 thanks in part to the athleticism of Adrian Clinton. Clinton reached base on a single and his tremendous speed on the base paths allowed him to score the team’s second run.
The story of this game was the Tigers starting pitcher sophomore Chris Medeot who threw a complete game in his first start at the varsity level. He went seven innings, allowed two earned runs and struck out seven Unicorns batters. As the game went longer Medeot seemed to get stronger and more confident on the mound mixing his pitches very well to keep the Unicorns batters from getting too comfortable at the plate. His curveball was spectacular and led to many key outs in the game.
“I knew he was capable. I had him over the summer for the last couple of years and I knew he was ready for the start. He wanted to finish the game and I felt you know what he finished at 101 pitches so he was good to go,” said Galligani. “Once he settled into the game a little bit his confidence level obviously increased and you can see by the way he threw the ball.”
Medeot was pleased he was able to help his team achieve their first win of the 2012 season.
“It’s a big deal especially when you’re a sophomore on the varsity to go the distance. I’m just so happy that I got the opportunity to start today. I really wanted to go out and pitched the best I could,” said Medeot.
The Tigers play at North Rockland early in the week before coming home to play Stepinac on Saturday afternoon in the battle of White Plains.
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