by Vinny Messana
Tim Woodford was fooling around with a forkball grip before the game and he liked it. Undeterred that he never threw it in a game, he decided to use it against East Islip, a team that had defeated Hauppauge five of the past six games, including twice in the postseason.
He had the guts to not only use the pitch, but use it a majority of the time which allowed him to fire a complete game, allowing just one ER, five hits and one walk while striking out six in the Eagle’s 2-1 victory against League V rival East Islip.
“Each pitch is a fight,” said the St. Joseph’s commit. “Especially in a 2-1 game like that. Each pitch is very important, there’s no room for complacency,” he added.
East Islip actually took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on an RBI single by Rob Iadanza to score Anthony Visconte–who led off with a single.
That was all Woodford would allow to cross the plate. The only other jam he got in was in the sixth when he allowed singles to Joe Carrao and Kieran Dowd, but induced a popout to Visconte and a force out by Brendan Dowd.
The Hauppauge bats went to work against southpaw Joe Marino in the fourth inning after getting shut down the first three innings.
Matt Overton led off the inning with a walk and advanced to second on Tyler Sanderson‘s ground out to Marino. First baseman Devin Jenny followed with a huge RBI double down the right field line to tie the game at 1. Catcher Blake Adamo drove him in with a single to give the Eagles the lead, and that was all Woodford needed.
Woodford needed only 70 pitches to complete the game–a remarkably efficient performance.
“Tim probably has the best stuff of all three of our starters,” said Head Coach Josh Gutes. “He just left one change-up up, and that was the RBI single. He was fantastic. He’s a strike thrower, I trust him out there,” he added.
With the victory, Hauppauge improves to 12-2 and are well positioned to win the league once again. Their starters have now thrown 10 complete games this season.
“We’re now 2-5 against them in the past three years and six of those seven games have been decided by one run. I don’t know what it is about the two of us…we’re both tough, gritty, scrappy kids and they’ve gotten the better of us the past two years. They’re always tough and they’re well-coached.”
