Six wins in a row for La Salle baseball

Posted 4/25/16

Langston Livingston calls for time after reaching in the second inning Wednesday. Livingston finished 2-for-3 on the day. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt) by Jonathan Vander Lugt Another week of …

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Six wins in a row for La Salle baseball

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Langston Livingston calls for time after reaching in the second inning Wednesday. Livingston finished 2-for-3 on the day. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt) Langston Livingston calls for time after reaching in the second inning Wednesday. Livingston finished 2-for-3 on the day. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)

by Jonathan Vander Lugt

Another week of Catholic League games down, another pair of Catholic League wins for the La Salle College High School Explorers.

After victories over Archbishop Ryan High School and Lansdale Catholic High School by a combined score of 18-1, the Explorers seem to heating up in step with the weather. Really, they've been red-hot since the start of April, having given up just four runs in three weeks of play.

Their win Wednesday, a 10-1 jaunt over LC, was the sixth Explorer victory in a row. All of them have come since the calendar turned from March, and many by lopsided margins against some of their opponents' top arms.

“He's a pretty good pitcher,” LS head coach Kyle Werman said of Nick Smalley, the hurler that the Crusaders featured Wednesday. “He showed it in the first inning.”

That would be when Smalley sawed through the first three hitters of La Salle's lineup with ease, resulting in a pair of strikeouts and an easy fly ball to second base.

This came off the heels of an inning in which Zack Moretski gave up a lead-off double that eventually came around to score, resulting in a 1-0 advantage heading into the second. It was nearly a carbon copy of the start of last week's game against Archbishop Carroll, when the Patriots got off on the upper hand in a very similar fashion.

That game turned lopsided fairly quickly and this one went in that direction even faster.

Smalley ran into some trouble in the second inning, letting Langston Livingston reach on a single before walking Jerry Mangan. A sac bunt and a big strikeout came next, and it seemed like Smalley was on his way to weaseling out of an early jam.

“Give our guys credit,” Werman went on. “They took advantage of a couple mistakes, and our guys kept passing the bat.”

Before you knew it, “we looked up and had a big inning,” Werman said.

With two outs in the frame, Hunter McGarvey singled the first run in. Then came Eric Maresheski's one-base, two-RBI knock. Then Greggory Sywulak brought a run in with yet another one-base hit. Andrew Cosetti broke the streak and roped a triple to drive in another, and not to be outdone, Kyle Hemcher laced another RBI three-bagger. Livingston grounded out listlessly to second to end the inning, but the damage was done.

For those counting at home, that's six runs—all with two outs.

“We kept passing the bat,” Werman said. “That's what you need to do.”

“After a couple of batters, we started to adjust,” said Hemcher, who finished the day 1-for-3 with his aforementioned triple. “We were starting to get on top of the ball and drive it.”

“I think we're all doing pretty well,” he continued. “We're all taking team at-bats, and we're all doing well.”

Meanwhile, Moretski settled down and started dicing his way throgh LC's lineup. He went for five innings total, striking out 10, and didn’t allow another hit until a weak bloop single in the fifth. His final line was an impressive one: five innings, three hits, one run, and 10 strikeouts.

Even still, he still found a way to nit-pick his outing.

“I was elevating my fastball,” Moretski said. “I was throwing my off-speed pitches for strikes, but I was missing with my fastball.”

The opening double he gave up was an example, but needless to say, he managed to calm down. The La Salle bats kept chipping away, adding a run in each of the subsequent innings to keep the game out of reach.

“We kept tacking it on,” Werman said. “We never really opened it up after the second, but we kept scoring, and, to Zach's credit, he gave us quick innings.”

“It felt like we were in our dugout for a long time, and that's a good feeling,” he continued. “It really helps the offense.”

The momentum is much needed. This week presents a gauntlet for La Salle: a Monday tilt against Archbishop Wood, last year's league champion, followed by a Wednesday match up against Malvern Prep (the Inter-Ac's top squad), and, for good measure, Holy Ghost Prep on Saturday, another one of the top teams in the state.

“We're starting to see what we're made of,” Werman said. “We've still got some guys that are dinged up, or sick. Other guys are getting opportunities, and taking advantage of it.

“(Archbishop Wood) will be a big game for us. They got us twice last year, and I think our guys will be hungry to get them.”

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