By Mike Zummo
The game was moving along swimmingly.
And then the fifth inning happened.
The Iron Dukes led the Red Hook Raiders by three runs, but then made three errors in a nightmare fifth inning that led the Raiders to a 7-6 win over the Iron Dukes on May 2 at Marlboro High School.
“It was a bad game,” Marlboro coach John Morrissey said. “It was just bad baseball. We had great pitching today. Our pitchers did an outstanding job, but we just played bad baseball, and if you give a team that many free chances, there’s only so many ways we can make up for it. We didn’t play the defense we should, and we didn’t hit the way we should. It was just bad baseball.”
The Iron Dukes’ offense wasn’t flashy as it built a 3-0 lead after four innings. Cooper Vogel led off the third with a single, was moved over by a bunt in which the Raiders failed to record an out and a sacrifice bunt by Justin Piscopo. He then came around to score on Carter Rivieccio’s groundout.
A walk, two Red Hook errors and an infield single by Vogel led to two more Marlboro runs in the fourth.
All the while, Daniel Conrad was shutting down the Raiders, allowing one hit with six strikeouts, but things fell apart in the fifth inning.
“He did a tremendous job,” Morrissey said. “They weren’t hitting him hard. He had control of his pitches, and he did an outstanding job.”
Ryan Dibble led off with a single and then went to third base on Charlie Lueck’s base hit. Then with one out, Jack Neese hit a ground ball to second baseman Matt Ciarimboli, who chose to go home, but threw the ball away.
“Every day, we work on coming home,” Morrissey said. “But when you force a throw instead of doing what you practice, and this is for everybody, you catch the ball, turn the hips and throw it home, and you have success. But when you let the situation bat you, which I think we did a lot today, we’re not going to have success.”
The situation was a wet field that was drenched by weekend rains, which forced the postponement of the game from the day before. The weather caused a slow infield, that many players were unable to adjust to.
Conrad was almost out of the inning when he induced a pop-up from Evan Hanaburgh, but Austin Litton doubled home two runs to tie the game and Brady Giorgio reached on Ciarimboli’s second error of the inning to give the Raiders the lead. After Robert Paschal’s single gave the Raiders a 5-3 lead, Morrissey went to Nicholas Gephard to finish the inning.
A two-run error gave the Raiders a 7-3 lead.
Gephard threw two more scoreless innings to finish the game. The Iron Dukes added two runs in the fifth on a walk to Ciarimboli and when Gephard was hit by a pitch, both with the bases loaded and Max McKiever hit a sacrifice fly in the seventh, but Marlboro stranded the tying run on second base.
“Gephard came in and threw well, and we just didn’t give him the support he needed,” Morrissey said. “Our pitchers did an outstanding job, and I can’t say how proud I am of them, but as a team, we have to be better.”
The Iron Dukes had three more opportunities to get better last week as they took the field Wednesday against the New Paltz Huguenots and Thursday against Rondout Valley.
They lost, 10-3, to New Paltz. Jack Maiale doubled twice and Mike Lynn hit a double and a single for New Paltz. Justin Couteaux and Gavin Treglia had two singles each.
Carter Rivieccio singled twice for the Iron Dukes and Conrad singled twice and drove in a run.
They finished the week with a 15-4 road loss in Beacon. Benfer had two singles and an RBI and Vogel had two singles and two RBIs. Mikey Fontaine led Beacon with two doubles and four RBIs.
“We just have to have better performances from the defense,” Morrissey said. “We have to get our guys healthy, and we have to turn the page and get back at it.”