By Ted Waddell
JEFFERSONVILLE — May 18, 2001 – On Wednesday afternoon, host Sullivan West/Jeffersonville-Youngsville pulled off a virtually uncontested 10-2 upset the Comets of Fallsburg on a dusty Lions Field.
It was the first OCIAA Division IV loss for Fallsburg.
The home team jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the opening frame, and although Fallsburg battled back with solo homers in the second and fourth innings, it was never really a contest after the fifth frame when SW/J-Y scored five runs. They closed the gate with three more runs in the sixth to end the Comets’ six-game division winning streak.
Justin Pinkel led off the first inning for SW/J-Y with a big two-strike hit, followed by a Bill Reichmann single. Jon Fanning’s grounder to third scored Pinkel. Kyle Bright hit a fly ball to center field, but the Fallsburg shortstop threw the ball into deadball territory to score an unearned run for the home team.
In the second frame, James Pena of Fallsburg smashed a solo homer to make 2-1 ballgame.
The Comets mighty Mike Hernandez stepped up to the plate in the fourth, and lead off the inning with a solo shot to tie it up 2-2.
In the fifth frame, the home team exploded for five runs. The first three batters racked off singles against Corey Huber to stack the deck: Pinkel, Reichmann and Fanning. Huber then served up a walk to Bright to score a run. Jake Sauer-Jones singled to score a pair of runs. A single by Jon Tanous scored the fourth run of the frame, followed by a suicide squeeze by Matt Parks to make it a 7-2 ballgame.
In the sixth, it was back to the top of the order for SW/J-Y. Pinkel grounded out to third, followed by Reichmann’s fourth single of the game. Fanning’s crusher double to the fence allowed Reichmann to leg it across the plate from first. Bright doubled to right field, scoring Fanning. A bloop single by Tanous sent Bright home to end the scoring fever at 10-2.
The Comets didn’t help their efforts to remain undefeated in OCIAA competition by a few sloppy plays which were aided by some tricky bounces on the dusty infield. They also left six runners stranded in scoring position: in the third, a man was left on second with no outs; in the fourth, runners were out to dry at second and third with one out; in the fifth, the runner at second was left to wilt in the dust with zip-outs; and in the final frame, runners died at first and second with nobody out as Reichmann repeatedly pitched his way out of trouble.
“I thought it was a good game until the fifth inning,” said Fallsburg coach Brett Cancredi. “We left a lot of guys in scoring position. That hurt us and our defense failed us a little bit. We caught a couple of bad breaks, but that’s just baseball.”
According to Cancredi, Reichmann was in the strike zone all day and his curve ball was working.
“We’ve been hitting the ball well, so I’m not really worried about it,” he added looking at the rest of the regular season.
Reichmann struck out five and hit four singles on his way to victory.
His take on the game?
“This is the best game I’ve pitched all year,” said the 17-year old senior hurler. “Today, I hit my spots good...I only hung a couple of pitches over the plate and Fallsburg jumped on them. I think we did pretty good.”
“This was a big win for us,” said Kurt Scheibe, coach of the SW/J-Y Trojans. “We came up with some big pitches, and good defense behind our pitching. It all starts with key pitching.”