Allan Appel Photo
Govs’ first baseman Jorge Velez holds Titan runner Evan Wilkinson close to the base.
The WIlbur Cross Governors baseball squad eked out a 2 – 1 victory Wednesday afternoon over the Mark T. Sheehan (Wallingford) High School Titans in a pitchers’ duel at sunny Rice field.
They won by combining a sparkling defense with high energy at bat.
After the victory.
That brings the Governors’ record this season to 5 – 2.
Wednesday’s victory followed a 30 – 0 drubbing at the hands of Amity earlier in the week.
“You showed great character,” told the players in the huddle-up after Wednesday’s victory. “You got beat up, and now you’ve fought back to your winning ways.”
Jorge Velez drives a ball into center field.
After the Titans’ lead-off hitter Evan Wilkinson scored on a clean single off Govs’ pitcher Angel Galindez in the first inning, the game settled down into a pitchers’ duel between Galindez and the Titans’ lefty Kevin Vining.
Galindez was hurting from a leg injury in aprevious loss to Branford. He still had his curve ball, and for the next several innings struck out a Titan per inning. Thanks to that pitching, combined with some sparkling defense at shortstop by Andrew Marrero and some great stretching at first base by Jorge Velez, the Titans scored no more.
Cross was, to use the coaches’ phrase, “on the fence” throughout the game, meaning no one was sitting on the bench in the dugout while a Govenor was at bat. They were behind the fence, hands clutched on the wire, yelling encouragement to the batter.
“Go, Nando!” they called when strong-hitting center fielder Fernando Doria was at the plate.
“Drew, Drew, Drew,” they yelled when Andrew Marrero, the clean-up batter, had his swings.
Huddling up and encouraging each other in the infield.
“Cano, Cano, Cano!” they shouted when catcher Angel Rivera, whose style is reminiscent of Major Leaguer Robinson Cano, had his turn at the plate.
“You’re playing good defense. Now how about some offense?” Coach Ramos urged them on in the fourth. Yet there were still no runs.
In the fifth, the Govs sent in sub Raul Tejada to pinch-hit for Elias Reid, “just to change something up,” said Coach Adam O’Leary. That’s baseball talk for messing with the mysteries of the game. Because the Govs were connecting, hitting the ball hard, but it was being caught.
The fifth inning ended with Cal Melendez caught and run down and tagged between first and second. The Govs were still behind by one run with only two innings left to play.
In the top of the sixth, with the infield meeting with him frequently and cheering him on, Galindez struck out two more Titans. Marrero, dashing to his right and making a long off balance throw to Velez, retired the side.
Now in their part of the sixth, something happened for the Governors. That energy was cascading. They were down only one run. “Everybody on the fence! Pizza party,” the kids called from dug out as the batters came up.
Galindez got on base thanks to a Titan error. Marrero bunted him to second, but in doing so made an out. Galindez moved to third and into scoring position on a ball that got by the Titan catcher.
In doing this, the team was following up on the third of Coach Angel Ramos’s key demands, besides high energy and good defense: Always take advantage of the other teams’ errors.
Govs’ Julian Rodriguez makes contact.
Still, the task was to get Galindez in, and then Rivera, who had walked. Galindez would tie the game if he came in, Rivera’s crossing the plate would put the Govs ahead for the first time in the game
Would “being on the fence” be enough? Would there be another Titan error?
The Governors only had two outs left in the inning.
As cries of “Nando, Nando, Nando,” came non-stop from the dugout, big-hitting Fernando Doria came to the plate, and responded. He drilled a single to left that scored Galindez from third. Finally, the score was tied.
Another tall, strong hitter was up, first baseman Jorge Velez. The noise from the bench was loud, but Velez struck out. The silver lining to that whiff was that Rivera advanced to third.
Third baseman Alex Suarez came up and swung at the first pitch. When it got away from the catcher, yet another Titan pass ball, Rivera dashed in from third and in a close play scored.
Velez, left, and Rodriguez enjoy a moment after the victory.
“Amazing,” he said, when he trotted into the dugout. The sixth inning ended with the Govs ahead two to one.
And that’s how the game ended, as the bench kept up the noise for Galindez, who pitched the entire game, “to close it out, close it out!”
In his remarks in the post-game huddle-up, Ramos praised the team, democratically: “Everybody did something. In a close game like this, we need to execute. This is the second game we won taking advantage of the other team’s mistakes.”
After the game as Velez was packing up his gear with teammate Julian Rodriguez, he quoted the coach: “High energy and defense wins games.”