By PAUL GOTHAM
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — In 48 short hours, the balance of power shifted in Monroe County Division II.
Chad Gartland worked in and out of trouble. Jackson DeJohn closed out the last two innings.
And then there was Jose Morales.
For the second time in as many head-to-head meetings, the Irondequoit Eagles outlasted three-time Section V champion, Canandaigua.
“It feels amazing,” Gartland said after Irondequoit’s 2-1 win over the Braves. “They’re an amazing team, and our team came together and got a big win. It was huge.”
Gartland struck out four and walked one over five innings of work to pick up the win. The right-hander allowed eight hits and did not have a clean inning on the afternoon.
“Chad is a pressure-performing player,” first-year Irondequoit coach Joey Kuhn said. “He wants that pressure. He wants the ball all the time. He never wants to be taken out of a game. He doesn’t get rattled. He’s the guy that if we got to middle inning relief, I give him the ball and say ‘get us out of this.'”
Gartland was at his best minimizing the damage in the fourth inning. Canandaigua’s Luke Pawlicki and Sam Werth led the frame with back-to-back singles. Zach Wantuck loaded the bases when he worked a walk.
He struck out the next batter which brought the top of the order to the plate. Gartland induced a fly ball for an RBI-sacrifice.
“Stay calm and throw strikes,” he said when asked about his approach with the bases loaded. “Those situations are tough to get through. I got great defenders behind me. They help us get out of that.”
It appeared Canandaigua would break the game open when Joey Brinza sent a ball to left field that looked destined to fall and run to the fence. That is until Morales tracked it down and made a backhanded stab to end the threat.
“Off the bat I thought it was going to drop,” Gartland said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I saw Jose run it down. Jose is fast. We trust him so much. Once it got near him I knew we had it. We got in with limited damage.”
“I needed to catch that ball,” Morales said. “If I didn’t catch that ball, two runners probably would have scored. I really needed to catch that for the team.”
Morales used his speed to break a scoreless tie in the third inning. The senior reached on a one-out single and stole second base. When a wild pitch caromed off the backstop and bounced toward first base, Morales alertly rounded the bag at third and came home with the first run of the game.
“I told coach while we were taking swings if it goes by, I’m trying to take two on this one,” he explained. “I saw that it went by and nobody was reacting toward the ball. Even though coach held me up, I was sprinting as fast as I could.
“At first I thought it was along the backstop. Then I saw it bounce all the way to first base. As soon as I saw that, I was gone.”
DeJohn scored the winning run from third in the fifth inning when Frankie Fernandes reached on an error.
Irondequoit scored in the seventh inning of Monday’s meeting to take a 1-0 decision. On Wednesday, Canandaigua left eight runners on base. The Braves had three hits in the first inning and came away empty-handed. They had three more batters reach in the second without any runs to show for it. In both stanzas, the Eagles erased a runner on the base paths.
“We practice holding runners a lot,” Kuhn explained. “In the first two innings we got two runners out between third and home. They had a runner on second with two outs. We cut home and get him at the plate. Next inning they get a runner on second with two outs. They get a single and we cut him down between third and home again.
“Those are two huge. In these games against them when we finish 1-0 and 2-1, to get two guys between third and home in the first two innings, that’s a game changer.”
DeJohn worked a scoreless sixth and seventh inning to get the save. The right-hander struck out three and allowed one hit.
With the win Irondequoit (8-3/5-1) took sole possession of first place in Monroe County Division II.
“We had a rough patch at first,” Morales said. “We grew a lot. Beating a team of this caliber really means a lot. I’m at a loss for words right now. I’m just really excited we were able to pull it off.”
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