Mike Freda following the 9-3 victory. He hit the bases clearing triple in the sixth to break the game open pic.twitter.com/ogUNiSt5iY
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) July 24, 2018
With the bases loaded, one out and Mike Freda at the plate, the game was at a critical point as the Body Armor were holding onto a 6-3 lead over the East End Aviators.
Coax a double play and there would still be hope. Instead, the powerful catcher rippled one just inside the third-base line and it rolled all the way to the wall allowing all three base runners to score as he scampered all the way to third.
“I was just sitting fastball, waiting and I drove it down the line,” said the rising sophomore at Hills West.
The game was close up until that inning when the Titans put up four runs to essentially put the game out of reach. They got on the board in the top of the first inning on an unearned run that came in on a throwing error by the shortstop.
The Aviators wound up striking right back with three runs against Titans’ starter Logan Gersbeck. Three consecutive singles by Aidan McGuire, Tyler Walsh and Isaac Reyes resulted in the first run, a sac fly by Jack Halloran brought in the second run and an error brought in the third.
The Titans wound up putting up three runs in the second inning off Aviators’ starter Max Heilman, although it was to very little fault of his own.
Gersbeck led off with a single, he struck out the next batter, before giving up a single to Justin Perrino to put a runner in scoring position. The ensuing batter, Coltrane Callaway hit a high pop up between the SS, second baseman and center fielder that should’ve been caught but landed between all three of them to load the bases. Jordan Zucker hit an RBI single to right field and then a very unusual play followed that. Sean Lane, the powerful third baseman for the Titans and St. Dominic HS bounced one back to the mound, Heilman fired the ball home for the force out, but the attempt to complete the double play hit Lane and caromed into right field and allowed two runs to score and give the Titans a 4-3 lead.
In the top of the third, No. 8 hitter Giovanni Cocchiaro ripped a single to right field to score Evan Fisher to extend the lead to 5-3.
Both pitchers settled in for the next couple innings and there was no scoring until the top of the sixth inning.
After Cocchiaro was retired to lead off the sixth, the next five batters reached base, capped with the bases-clearing triple by Freda. That put the icing on the game, and opened up a 9-3 lead.
Coltrane Callaway came on in relief to throw a scoreless sixth inning, at which point the game reached the time limit of 1 hour, 50 minutes and it was called with one inning remaining.
Gersbeck was awarded the victory and Heilman was handed the loss.
