By Thomas Cregan
Garden city strikes first in the top of the 5th with a 2 run single by Braden Soutar who is now 3 for 3 in this game pic.twitter.com/40JrUvYClR
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 11, 2022
Garden City improves to 14-4 in conference and 14-5 overall after defeating MacArthur, 9-4.
The Garden City Trojans were led to victory with big performances by third baseman Braden Soutar, shortstop Jack Fanning, and an impressive and resilient outing from starting pitcher Josh Cohen.
Soutar was the main standout performer among the three going 4-for-5 with four singles and 3 RBIs. Fanning went 3-for-4 at the plate with a double and two singles. Cohen, who looked as if he had lost the zone early on in his outing after hitting three batters within the first 4 innings and issuing an additional walk, managed to compose himself and earn the win leaving the game with his team up 7-3 in the bottom of the sixth inning.
This late season game between the two best teams in conference Nassau A-1 featured a pitching matchup between Josh Cohen for Garden City and Ryan Castrillon for MacArthur. Garden City came to the plate first and Braden Soutar led off with a single into right field. Joe Wood would ground into a double play before Patrick Heber flew out to center field. MacArthur’s first trip to the plate would nearly mirror their opponents as their leadoff batter James Eden would hit a liner into the gap allowing him to advance to second for a double. However, this would be followed up by three consecutive flyouts from Matt Sarni, Sebastian Loor, and Finn Duffy holding the runner at first and eventually stranding him to end the inning. Pitching and defense would dominate the early parts of the game as Matt Guida would groundout to short followed by a single from Jack Fanning. The next two batters Leberopoulos and Elmokian would groundout leaving a man on base again in the 2nd inning.
The middle innings continued to be dominated by pitching and defense on both sides as Ryan Castrilllon looked unfazed through four innings of play. On the other hand, his opponent in the matchup, Josh Cohen, began experiencing struggles losing the zone hitting Ryan Tam with a pitch in the 3rd inning and a scary moment when he hit MacArthur shortstop Chris Picarella in the helmet with a pitch that got away from him in the 4th inning. Cohen would end up loading the bases in the top of the 4th and managed to settle down and impressively work out of a jam while managing to find the zone again.
MacArthur’s bats remained quiet in their half of the 4th inning after a 2-out double from catcher Sebastian Loor, as he was stranded once Finn Duffy would groundout to end the inning.
The top of the fifth is where the offense came alive for Garden City likely motivated by Cohen impressively working out of a jam in the previous inning. A leadoff walk by Liberopolous and Gabriel Elmokian being hit by a pitch led to a bunt single moving the runner to second and third by Francesco Ingrassia. This brought Braden Soutar to the plate who would hit a ball over the right side of the infield allowing two runs to score putting the Trojans up 2-0. MacArthur could not get anything going in the bottom of the fifth and when garden City came up to bat, they capitalized with men on base again with RBI singles from Francesco Ingrassia and Braden Soutar notching his third RBI of the game.
Braden Soutar hits his fourth single of the game to put Garden City up 4 in the 6th and notches his 3rd RBI after an RBI single from Francesco Ingrassia put them up 3. pic.twitter.com/fxnX5lYmnF
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 11, 2022
Garden city would continue to bat around in the 6th along with Castrillon issuing several walks including walking in 2 runs. Matt Guida would notch the final runs for Garden city with a 2-run single. Though it looked as if the game was over for MacArthur, they did show some life in the bottom of the 5th tagging Cohen for a single by Ryan Tam and another single which would score two runners off the bat of James Eden who finished the day 3 for 4 with 2 RBIs. The day was not over for Braden Soutar who not only went 4 for 5 in the game with 3 RBIs, but he also pitched the final inning for his team recording the final three outs in the 7th. The final score would be 9-4 with Garden City coming out on top improving their record to 14-5 overall. MacArthur with the loss is now 15 and 4 overall and 15-3 in conference.
