Baseball: Shelter Island routs Southold, 15-0
“Get out the broom!” someone from the stands shouted after the Indians’ won their third game in a row against Southold on April 29. It was a resounding 15-0 victory.
The Indians came out swinging, scoring 6 runs in the first two innings. They went on a huge run in the fourth and fifth innings, driving in another 8 runs. Nearly every Indians player crossed home plate. Another run from Nate Mundy in the 6th inning and Southold’s fate was sealed.
The Indians’ speed helped the baserunning tremendously, earning them repeated steals. Nate Mundy and Matt and Andrew BeltCappellino are so fast they “pretty much have their choice” of when they want to advance bases, Coach Peter Miedema said. Though many of the players are fast, their big leads can sometimes get them into trouble. In the second inning, after stealing third base on the previous play, Matt Dunning’s lead got him caught in a pickle when the batter hit the ball to third base. He tried to escape but got tagged out after changing direction a few times.
The Indians returned the favor, however, when a Southold player got caught in no man’s land between third and home in the bottom of the sixth. Matt BeltCappellino got the tag.
Freshman Matt BeltCappellino pitched 6 of the 7 innings, throwing 6 strikeouts. He gave Southold a few chances with 5 walks, but few errors in the field helped the Indians clean up. “I don’t think Matt has given up a run in the last 12 innings he’s pitched, so that’s pretty impressive,” Coach Miedema said after the game. Junior Jay Card took the mound to finish out the 7th inning, throwing two strikes.
“When you pitch like that and play defense like that, we’re hard to beat,” Coach Miedema said.
After seeing remarkably few errors until recent games, Coach Miedema let his frustration with a few foolish errors show. “Get your heads in the game!” he shouted after an Indians runner mistakenly went to tag up on a pop fly with two outs in the second inning. “There were a couple of mental things this game,” Coach Miedema told the Reporter. “Guys not knowing how many outs there are … and just not truly knowing the situation. In baseball, there’s no excuse — you have too much time to know what you should be doing. That’s happened but we’ll fix it.”
He also hopes to see some improvements in the batter’s box: “We’re making contact and putting the ball in play, but there’s too many ground balls or pop-ups. I’d like to see them drive the ball a little bit more,” Coach Miedema said.
“Still, we made some nice plays in the field today, and our pitching has really just been top-notch.”
“Eight and 0 is a good feeling,” Nate Mundy commented after the game, referring to their record on Friday. That feeling didn’t last long, as the team chalked up its first loss of the season, falling to Greenport on Monday (see separate story).
The score of Wednesday’s game against Greenport wasn’t available when the Reporter went to press, and a rain-out looked possible. The boys play at Greenport again tomorrow at 4 p.m.
