By SPENCER BATES
SALAMANCA — While there was some rust to shake off after the spring break, the Salamanca baseball team adjusted fast, managing to keep its record blemish free with a league win over Allegany-Limestone.
The Warriors, who had 11 days elapse prior to squaring off against the Gators, pushed their overall record to 7-0 and CCAA Div. I record to 2-0 with their 8-4 win which was earned thanks to some late offense and a nearly perfect day defensively. Unfortunately for the visitors, the same could not be said as defensive errors combined with struggles at the plate led to their downfall.
For a team that needed to reconstruct some of the “cohesion” it had lost over the long break from games, Salamanca came out of the gates firing, scoring three runs in the first three innings while keeping A-L empty on the scoreboard in the process. The Gators managed to fire back and knot the game up. But it was the fight his team showed in its immediate response, putting the game to bed late after having given up the lead, which made coach Greg Herrick happiest in the aftermath.
“Some (of our players) were gone for the whole week and a half (of break),” Herrick said. “So we just didn’t have the cohesiveness that we had built. But it came back, I would say, in the third or fourth inning, you could tell the rust was getting knocked off a little bit. So, it was just a slow start. We like to start fast and get the lead. … We got a couple insurance runs and had the one bad inning, so that was disappointing. But I told these guys, we’ve talked about it, this is going to be the way it is every game in the league. You’ve got to have enough courage to keep fighting. And you can’t get down, blowing a three-run lead. You got to keep in it, stay in there and fight. They did a good job of that.”
While the bottom of the lineup certainly helped out in ways that may not show up in the box score, a majority of the big moments on offense were courtesy of the top of the Salamanca batting order, all of whom were led by Cory Holleran, who went 3-for-4 with three runs and an RBI on the day. Jacob Herrick (1-for-4, run, 2 RBI), Zach Trietley (1-for-4, run), Payton Bradley (2-for-4, run, RBI) and Kruz Coustenis (1-for-2, RBI, 2 walks) each pulled their weight at the plate as well.
Salamanca’s Jacob Herrick (2) swings at a pitch against Allegany-Limestone. Herrick went 1-for-4 with a run and two RBI against the Gators. (Spencer Bates)
But what made the biggest difference was the defense the Warriors were able to produce that kept their lead safe. With only one error on the day, recorded in the top of the seventh inning, the improvement in the field was significant after it had struggled in recent affairs.
“That was a big point in this game, because we had four errors and I thought we played sloppy (last time against A-L),” Greg Herrick said. “We had a lot of guys out of position tonight. We had a suspension from last game that kind of shifted everybody all over to new positions, and I thought they adapted really well. … So just getting that (performance) out of our guys was huge. And to have just the one error there at the end, that’s just good baseball, especially for not practicing together for a while.”
But luckily for the defense, its job was made all the easier thanks to the performance on the mound from Trietley (6 SO, 3 BB) and relief pitcher Holleran (5 SO, 1 BB), who have made for a dynamic duo in the early goings of the season for Salamanca.
“Cory has been really good in relief, he’s got that mentality,” Greg Herrick said. “I think he knows what’s in front of him at that point in the game. Instead of trying to conserve and go seven innings, I think it changes his mentality. (The Trietley-Holleran duo) has been good, we just kind of stumbled into it. I don’t know that Cory will be the reliever for the rest of the year, but right now, I like the way that dynamic is playing out.”
And the A-L bats struggled mightily against the Warriors’ pitchers, connecting for just five hits. Vinny Labella was the only Gator that managed to record multiple hits, finishing 2-for-3 with a run and a walk on the day. Collin Forrest (1-for-3, run, RBI, walk), Isaiah Fisher (1-for-2, run) and Tayden Margeson (1-for-2, 2 RBI) were the only other true generators of offense for a youthful A-L side that coach Eric Hemphill noted needs to stop relying on others to get the job done.
“We clawed back in it, we got it to 3-3, and then we had a quick inning, and then we just never really got anything going offensively again,” Hemphill said. “So we’re just preaching to these young guys, we got a lot of youth on this team, we’ve got to have more quality at-bats up and down the lineup. We can’t rely on the top four or five to manufacture everything right now.”
Allegany-Limestone’s Caleb Strade (15) swings at a pitch against Salamanca. (Spencer Bates)
On the mound, A-L got a solid 5.1 innings out of starting pitcher Khyree Harmon who threw eight strikeouts and walked just one batter. He was eventually knocked out of the game late as Salamanca’s offense started to run away with the lead, but overall, Hemphill was happy with his starter, it is now just a matter of the defense, which tallied five errors against the Warriors, shaping up behind its pitcher.
“(Khyree) had a really good outing going,” Hemphill said. “We’ve been talking lately about our pitchers walking and hitting a lot of guys, and really, until that sixth inning, he did a good job of limiting that. … In the fourth or fifth inning, I said, ‘really, they should have no runs.’ We threw a ball away in the first, our left fielder circled a ball, so we could have been up 3-0 at that point. And then, (with a lead), you play with a different sense of energy and swagger and then the young guys think they can win a game.
“You can’t make the same mistakes over and over, which I think we’re not doing. It just seems like every day we’re making different mistakes. So we just got to curtail those mistakes and turn them into positives.”
Allegany-Limestone’s Khyree Harmon (11) delivers a pitch against Salamanca. Harmon tallied eight strikeouts and walked one batter against the Warriors. (Spencer Bates)
Salamanca will look to push its unbeaten start to the season to eight games next time out, in a home affair against Dunkirk on April 24 at 5 p.m.
As for Allegany-Limestone, it will look to get back in the win column at Southwestern on April 24 at 5 p.m.
AT SALAMANCA
Allegany-Limestone 000 300 1 4 5 5
Salamanca 102 014 X 8 9 1
A-L: Harmon (8 SO, 1 BB), Forrest (0 SO, 2 BB) and LaBella
Sala: Trietley (6 SO, 3 BB), Holleran (5 SO, 1 BB), Coustenis (0 SO, 0 BB) and Bradley
