Timely hitting propels Wave past RBC in extra innings
By chris kelly
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY Long Branch’s Jose Rivera slides safely into third base, under the tag of Red Bank Catholic’s Kevin McGrath, during the Green Wave’s 7-6 win.

Twice Long Branch needed to come from behind against Red Bank Catholic, and twice it succeeded.

For the second time this year, the Green Wave baseball team pulled a late-game comeback against Red Bank Catholic, this time winning 7-6 after eight innings.

"This team has the potential to be a really good team, we just need to keep from beating ourselves up," said Long Branch head coach V.J. Muscillo.

"Red Bank’s pitcher did a great job, and it took us until the third time around to get used to his throwing. But when we finally did, I knew we could get back into the game."

After trailing 3-1 and only producing four hits in the first five innings, Long Branch erupted in its half of the sixth to score four runs.

The Wave got a single from Joe Leon and an outfielder’s error, allowing Omar Pagan to represent the tying run on the base paths.

A spectacular lunging catch by RBC first baseman Tory Principe kept Xavier Irizarry from advancing the runners to second and third, but then a Chris Santos single loaded the bases. Mike Raftery’s line drive single to center field scored Leon and Pagan to deadlock the score at 3-3.

Long Branch took its first lead of the game after José Rivera’s single loaded the bases for the second time in the inning, and another line drive to center, hit by Eric Nilson, drove in Santos and Raftery.

Red Bank was able to end the inning before Long Branch batted around its order and could score any more runs.

The Caseys led off their last chance to avenge their earlier season loss to the green and white with a single by Brian Wolf and a double by Kevin McGrath.

Wolf then scored on a fielder’s choice putout to first on Casey Walko. McGrath crossed the dish on an infielder’s error that put Principe on first. A fly out to left and a swinging strikeout stopped RBC’s seventh-inning momentum, but not before the score was tied. Five batters walked to the plate in the bottom half of the seventh, but a pop fly and put-out at first, along with a swinging strikeout, kept Irizarry and Santos from scoring on singles.

In extra innings, the Caseys took their second lead of the game, scoring their only run in the eighth on a 385-foot solo homer from Riker. Long Branch’s defense was able to hold the Caseys to that solo shot, giving them a prime opportunity in their half of the inning.

Rivera singled to lead off Long Branch’s eighth-inning efforts, then was joined in the base paths by Nilson, who reached on an error, and Roman Camacho, who was intentionally walked. Even though the Caseys took the bat out of the hands of Camacho, it set up Leon for a two-RBI, game-winning line drive single.

Working the mound for the victors was Ken Banach, Omar Pagan and Camacho. The trio only gave up five earned runs, on 12 hits, nine walks, and struck out five. On the other side of the diamond, the pitching duties were handled by Bob Glowacki and Brian Wolf. The duo faced 42 batters, walked four, struck out 10, and gave up 13 hits. The win improved the Wave to 4-7, while RBC dropped to 4-7. Long Branch went on to drop a 14-13 slugfest to Manasquan on Saturday, before they fell to Ocean, 8-4, on Monday. As for the Caseys, they followed the Long Branch loss with a 3-1 loss to Toms River East on Saturday, and were hoping to reverse their losing streak on Wednesday when they took on Matawan.