By Nick Ristoff
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Sherrill Silversmiths shut the Syracuse Jr. Chiefs out 9-0 in New York Collegiate Baseball League action at Onondaga Community College, Friday afternoon.
Reid Neal (Florida Atlantic) led the charge for the Silversmiths, he went 3-5, had two RBI and scored once in the victory.
“It was really important to get up early,” Neal said. “We’ve fallen behind the past four games so it was nice to put runs up.”
Neal is batting an impressive .348 this summer. He has 47 hits, 26 RBI and three home runs. Despite his stellar offensive performance, Neal has seen the most improvements in his confidence playing at shortstop.
With the win against the Jr. Chiefs on Friday Sherrill advanced to 20 wins on the season with 17 losses. The regular season is down to the home stretch and every win counts at this point.
“Baseball is all about playing the right way at the right time and coming up with a couple of clutch hits and good starting pitching,” coach Greg Dombrowski said.
Good starting pitching was what Daniel Jarrell (Washington Col) gave Sherrill.
Jerrell pitched eight and one third innings without letting up a run and struck out just one batter. The key to Jarrell’s success on Friday was getting ahead of the count early and keeping his pitches high in the zone. Jarrell also credited his teammates on making great plays in the field.
“I have full faith in all of our fielders so I’m able to succeed so much because I just put the ball in play and know that they will make the play for me,” Jarrell said.
Jarrell left the game due to Sherrill’s pitch count rule exceeding 115 pitches.
The bulk of Sherrill’s offense came in the bottom of the second inning. Alex Saville (Monroe CC) advanced to second base on an error, and then Kellen Brown (Florida Atlantic) knocked a single that advanced Saville to third base. Christian Triplett (North Carolina Central) walked to load the bases with only one out then Nicholas Duarte (Siena) hit a single that scored Saville and Brown. David Wright (SUNY Oneonta) joined the party and punched an RBI single through the Jr. Chiefs defense. Then Bryan Baquer (Washington Col) cracked a single to load the bases once again. With the bags juiced Reid Neal batted in Duarte and Wright with a single.
As if six runs wasn’t enough, the Silversmiths scored three more in the ninth inning to seal the deal. Neal started it with a lead off single. Saville reached first on a fielder’s choice, Kellen Brown walked and Christian Triplett cleared the bags with a deep three run RBI double.
Triplett went 2-4, three RBI and scored one run. Nicholas Duarte (Siena) collected two RBI, scored one run, and Brown went 2-3 and scored one run.
Sherrill (20-17) continues their road trip Saturday where they travel to Oneonta (23-15) to take on the Outlaws at Damaschke Field, the first pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m. The Jr. Chiefs (14-27) also hit the road to face the Hornell Dodgers (31-7) at Maple City Park with the first pitch being tossed at 3 p.m.
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