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Giovannolli outduels Hezel, 3-0
The lanky right-hander shuts out ICC to
give Coplay the 2-0 series sweep.
BETHELHEM
TOWNSHIP
-- On a hot and humid evening, Coplay's Paul Giovannoli was pitching like he
could not wait to find some air-conditioning as he threw a complete game shutout
to lift the Reds to a 3-0 win, sweeping the first-round, best-of-3 series
against the ICC Pirates.
Giovannoli, a junior at King's College, was sharp from start to finish, tossing
a six-hitter, striking out five while walking just one. He threw a ton of
ground-ball outs, as 20 of the 21 ICC outs were recorded with ground-outs or
strikeouts.
His counterpart, Bill Hezel, a freshman at Lehigh, also threw very well for the
Pirates, allowing just two earned runs in defeat.
Coplay got on the board early as Kyle Rhoades started the game by reaching base
on an error and was promptly sacrificed to second by Joe Bubba. After a fly-out,
Caleb Calarco (also from King's College), who played DH with an injured knee
(after sitting out Game 1), singled to left, plating Rhoades to make it 1-0
Reds. Mike Bortz and Eric Schmitt followed with base-knocks to load the bases
before Hezel got out of further damage with a strikeout to end the inning.
Things stayed quiet until the home half of the third inning, when the Pirates
mounted a rally and had what was easily their best scoring chance of the night.
Hezel grounded a ball off Giovannoli's glove for an infield single to start the
frame. Ben Behler grounded a single to right and Angel Rivera then lofted a
single to right to load the bases with nobody out and the top of the batting
order coming up for ICC. But a ground-out to third saw Bubba throw home for a
force out, and then Giovannoli got back-to-back batters out looking at third
strikes to end the threat and preserve the 1-0 Coplay lead.
And it would stay that way until the fifth, when Bubba blooped a single just
fair down the right-field line to start the inning. A pair of ground-outs moved
Bubba up 90 feet at a time to third, where he was able to trot home after Bortz
placed a blooper of his own into shallow right-center for a RBI and 2-0 Coplay
lead.
After the wild and wacky seventh inning from Game 1, the Reds figured a little
insurance would not hurt as they added another tally in the sixth. Jose Medina
lined a single to left-center with one out and moved to second on a wild pitch.
John Curreri then hit a sharp single to left (his fourth hit of the series) to
score Medina and make it 3-0 Reds, which is the way the game would finish.
Bortz was the game's only multiple hit player, going 2-for-4.
Coplay will move on to play at Limeport in the best-of-five semifinals at 7:30
on Friday. The Pirates, who lost almost their entire roster from a season ago,
finished with a 15-23 record, but had what many would consider a successful
season, making the playoffs despite losing a lot of good players.
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