Iannone and Gorgas Combine on One-Hitter

It started out innocently enough. With two out in the second inning, Al Iannone walked, Brian Roberson singled and Nate Heroux singled to drive in the game’s first run.

Little did anyone know it would be the game’s only run, and it was all East Hampton needed.

Iannone pitched five-plus innings of one-hit ball and Marvin Gorgas finished up with two innings of hitless relief as the Bellringers defeated Morgan 1-0 Friday in East Hampton.

It was the second 1-0 victory this week for East Hampton (11-2), with Iannone getting the win and Gorgas the save in both.

Iannone had struck out six and walked two when he took the mound in the sixth inning. But a leadoff walk brought coach Scott Wosleger out of the dugout and Gorgas to the mound.

“When we get to that [point in the game], if Al starts missing location a little bit, they’ve seen him a couple times through … I’ve been really going with the gut,” Wosleger said.

What the gut said was, “Gorgas,” even though the freshman pitched three innings of relief on Wednesday.

“It worked out again,” said Wosleger, who indicated had the situation been earlier in the game he might have gone to Austin Shumbo. “We are not naïve enough to think it’s going to work out every time, but we’ll take our chances.”

It has worked so far. With seven saves, Gorgas has entrenched himself as the closer.

For Iannone, he continued to build on a dominant season, improving to 6-0 and having pitched 11 1/3 scoreless innings over his last two starts.

“My arm feels great, feels really good,” the senior lefthander said. “I’ve been pounding the zone real well lately so that’s a help. Just keeping the batters off balance.”

As for giving way to Gorgas the past two games while working on a shutout, Iannone has no problem with that.

“Not at all,” he said. “He’s our closer. He’s awesome.”

With North Branford, Cromwell and Haddam-Killingworth coming up next week, the importance of this game was not lost on Wosleger.

“This was a game we absolutely had to have,” Wosleger said. “We have a very difficult week next week. Two of the three teams we play next week beat us already. You don’t handle these guys and you could be in for a problem.”

Sophomore Tim Neri made handling Morgan a little tougher than might have ben expected. The lefthander held the Bellringers to four hits while striking out one in six innings. The Huskies, who had won two in a row, dropped to 4-9 on the season.

“We came out flat and we warned them against it [Thursday],” Wosleger said. “Energy was like getting water out of stone. At the same time, we got the one run and we pitched and played a little defense. We feel very fortunate.

“Thank goodness for AI because he came focused. We were considering switching our pitching matchup mostly because North Branford, who we play Monday, [Adam] Michaud had already pitched against. So we were thinking maybe coming with Shumbo and Michaud [Friday]. We all agreed we’ve never messed around, since I’ve been here, with pitching matchups, just go with the best guy you have that day. Thank goodness we did.”