By PAUL GOTHAM
OLEAN, N.Y. — At the start of the day on July 19th, Bobby Bell’s Olean Oilers sat in fifth place a half-game out of the playoffs in the New York Collegiate Baseball League’s Western Division. Eleven days later, the Oilers are one win from reaching the NYCBL Championship Series. Yet one would never know this from talking to the Olean skipper.
Bell’s Oilers left no doubt in a convincing 12-6 victory over the Niagara Power in game one of the Western Division Championship series played at Bradner Stadium, Wednesday night.
Olean led by as many as nine runs in a contest where the offense put crooked numbers on the board in four innings and the defense, led by a masterful pitching performance from Ryan Pordes (El Camino Coll), looked nothing short of peerless.
Bell just can’t rest until the end goal is achieved.
“I guess it’s really cool, but I’m never okay with it,” the fourth-year coach said of the win. “I mean we’re six runs, eight runs whatever it was in that last inning, I was still pacing around that dugout. Until that last out is there. It’s a cool feeling to be up one to nothing (in the series), but I know what kind of team can come out tomorrow out of that (pointing to Niagara’s) dugout. Hopefully, it’s not the one that can beat us up.”
Olean’s bats spotted Pordes a four-run lead in the first, and the Oilers never looked back.
“That four-run lead or whatever we got was awesome,” the right-hander stated. “I was confident and could throw strikes. Just mixing up pitches with the fastball and change-up.”
The Hawthorne, California native struck out three and walked three in winning his third straight decision of the season.
With a commanding lead, the sophomore hurler turned in his longest performance in what will probably be his last outing of the season. Bell pointed out the irony of Pordes pitching into the ninth.
“Which is actually two more innings than we get. Usually the joke is Ryan can only get six and two-thirds, six and two-thirds. Six and two-thirds is usually the mark where I start scratching my head going okay who are we going to go to.
“He was locked in keeping the ball down. Really hitting his spots. When he does that and gets ahead in counts it’s going to extend his innings, and that’s going to be different.”
Pordes kept the Power, a team which scored a combined 20 runs in two wins over reigning NYCBL champion Hornell in the previous series, off the board for the first three innings. Niagara manged just single runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth frames.
His battery mate noted the advantage of being able to pitch with a lead.
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“You can be more aggressive when you’re ahead,” Olean catcher Mike Fahrman (University of Florida) said. “You can throw more sliders, more off-speed pitches because you know they’re on the ropes not us. We can be aggressive. We can kinda do whatever we want.
“If it’s tight game, you know, guy on third maybe we can’t go to the breaking ball because it gets by you or something like that. Definitely opens up the gates to be aggressive.”
Fahrman started the scoring in the first. His one-out single brought home Evan Ryan (Erie CC) from second. The Tampa, Florida native was hitting .238 on July 11th. Since then he has had six multi-hit games including a three base raps in the game-one win.
“One thing I’ve always been taught if it’s not going well just keep swinging,” the third-year Oiler said. “So that’s kinda what I’ve done. It’s what I’ve done all season.”
Fahrman sparked a three-run sixth as Olean put the game out of reach. With three Niagara defenders positioned on the left side of the infield, Fahrman sent a ground ball into right field.
“Mentally, that shift, if you let it, can mess you up,” he explained. “Getting one over there and beating the shift felt really nice.”
Johnny Lapolla (Suffolk) followed with a bloop single to right. Cole Peterson (St. Bonaventure) drilled a shot through the left side of the infield to load the bases. Nathan Lagos (North Greenville) came out of the bullpen for Niagara and induced a ground ball, but an error – one of five on the night committed by the Power’s defense, brought home a run. Eddie Edwards III (State University of New York at Buffalo) capped the inning with a single up the middle to score two. Olean led 10-3.
“It started an inning that they scored a lot of runs,” Niagara manager Josh Rebandt said of Fahrman’s hit. “The whole season I had seen him try to go that way, go that way, go that way.”
Half of Olean’s runs came as the result of Niagara errors.
“It’s unfortunate one of our worst played games of the year is in the Western Division Championship, but our guys aren’t out of it,” Rebandt added. “It’s just one of those nights where they really hit the ball well. We made a lot of errors on defense. Those types of things are going to cost you in a series like this.”
Niagara scored three runs in the ninth. Caleb Lang (Cairn) and Mason Irby (Jones County JC) drilled back-to-back doubles to give the Power momentum going into Thursday night’s game two.
“The vibe with our team is that we’re not done,” Rebandt said. “At this point of the season we know what our guys are capable of doing.”
Irby and Conner Combs (East Texas Baptist) both finished the night 3-for-5 to lead a Niagara squad which combined for 12 hits.
Fahrman scored three times and collected three of Olean’s 15 hits. Peterson also had three hits. The Olean shortstop pointed to the difference for this Oiler team which has gone from playing .500 ball in June to winning 11 of its last 13.
“Beginning of the year we weren’t getting the timely hitting. These last two weeks when we’re really grinding, we’re starting to get them hits, driving in runs. It’s coming in real effective for us.”
Olean’s defense committed just one error on the night but turned in several key plays with the leather.
“I had my team behind me,” Pordes said. “That’s pretty much the difference. I had the four-run lead. Guys making plays behind me.”
The series shifts to Sal Maglie Stadium, Thursday night. A 7 p.m first pitch is scheduled.
Paul Gotham is the founder, owner, editor and lead writer at Pickin’ Splinters. Paul is the Communications and Media Director of the New York Collegiate Baseball League. He is a contributor at USA Today and member of the USBWA. You can follow Paul on Twitter @PickinSplinters.
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