advertisement

Baseball: St. Charles East sneaks past Batavia

Joe Sciarrino was not taking any chances with a full count Wednesday afternoon in St. Charles.

The eighth-place batter for the St. Charles East baseball team, Scarrino had the bases juiced with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning in a tied Upstate Eight Conference River game with Batavia.

"(The pitch) was a ball," Scarrino said. "It was over my head."

But the Saints' senior still managed to split the Bulldogs' outfield gap between center and right field.

Niko Klebosits trotted home to give St. Charles East a 6-5 victory.

"I was just defensive swinging when I got 2 strikes," Sciarrino said. "I wanted to stay back and hit it the other way."

Batavia (5-7, 4-5) had tied the game in its half of the seventh when Anthony Carlini scored on a force attempt at home off an errant throw.

But the Saints' John Carroll made the defensive play of the game seconds later.

The senior second-baseman raced to the plate and tagged out the Bulldogs' Quinn O'Brien on an assist from catcher Niko Piakowy for the first out of the inning.

St. Charles East closer Steve Abruzzo escaped further damage.

"That was an unbelievably super play by Johnny," St. Charles East coach Len Asquini said. "Johnny saved the game there."

Conventional baseball wisdom suggests making the first out at home is a major no-no.

"I'm fine with it," Batavia coach Alex Beckman said. "(O'Brien) was just being aggressive on the bases. They just made a good play on it."

The dramatic seventh-inning developments had followed an offensive lull by both teams after a productive beginning of the game.

It was far from an aesthetically pleasing game defensively.

Both teams made physical as well as mental mistakes that enabled each team to score early.

St. Charles East (11-4, 6-1) and Batavia made 4 errors each; the Bulldogs ended up with one more hit after collecting 8 singles and a pair of doubles in the contest.

Batavia was also bedeviled by errors in its one-sided loss to the Saints on Tuesday.

"We have to learn how to make the plays and make them in the right spot," Beckman said.

St. Charles East took a 3-2 second-inning lead off another heads-up play, this time by Thomas Adams.

Stationed on third base with one out, Adams was in jeopardy of being caught in a pickle play.

"I got caught in the middle of it," Adams said of the dribbler down the third-base line. "If I went back to third, I probably would have been tagged out."

Adams made a mad dash for the plate and dove under the tag for a 3-2 St. Charles East lead.

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.