by Vinny Messana
After a couple less-than-stellar outings, Dan Jagiello appears to have righted the ship. The hard-throwing RHP for LIU Post–who has generated a great deal of buzz due to his sizzling fastball–threw seven stellar innings to defeat Bloomfield 6-1. He did so throwing primarily fastballs, which accounted for seven of his nine strikeouts.
“I feel like I didn’t really need my change up today,” said the West Islip grad. “Fastball was really working, so there was no need to change speeds,” he added. He saved his change up for the biggest spot in the game–with a runner on second and two outs with the Pioneers clinging to a 4-1 lead, Jagiello unleashed a filthy change which resulted in his ninth strikeout of the game, and it eliminated any hope the Bears had off a comeback.
Photo Credit: Vinny Messana
“I felt great out there today, felt like everything was working,” he said.
He noted that he is not allowing himself to get caught up in the draft hype, simply trying to win a championship for his team.
As for the offense, they got out to a quick 1-0 lead when first baseman David Groeneveld hit a sac fly to left field to score leadoff man James Crohan, who beat out an infield single to shortstop.
They added a run in the fourth on a unique play. With runners on first and second, Joe Piscitelli hit a tailor-made DP to third base. The third baseman fired to second for the first out, but the throw to first forced the first baseman to come off the bag. The runner that was on second base, Rob Andreoli, was hustling the entire way and came around to score–much to the delight of Head Coach Mike Gaffney.
“He’s a throwback” according to Gaffney. “He’s a guy that loves to get on base and cause some damage in that route, doing some unconventional stuff–taking the extra base, trying to get into the pitcher’s head, extending leads, shortening leads, confusing pitchers, confusing catchers,” he added.
Andreoli also smacked a two-run single right up the middle in the fifth inning to score Joe Spitaleri which extended the lead to 4-0.
Jagiello had his only hiccup in the next inning. He allowed a massive solo shot to Harry Montero to get the Bears on the board.
He did some heavy lifting in the seventh inning to elude trouble. After allowing a lead off double, he induced a fly out to right, a strikeout looking on a fastball and the aforementioned strikeout looking on the change up to end the threat.
The Pioneers broke it open with an RBI hustle double by Groeneveld to score Spitaleri and increase the lead to 5-1. They added a run in the eighth inning on a wild pitch.
Dave Anholzer came on in relief of Jagiello and threw two shutout innings, despite allowing three hits. He displayed a very good change up and retired the side before the heavy rains came just after the final out.
