Cougars Baseball Rolls Past St. Mary’s 13-3

Keith Powell's bat got into the attack early, and that was more than enough to propel the boys' varsity baseball team to a convincing 13-3 victory over St. Mary's of Elizabeth Thursday in Cranford.

Powell smacked a two-run double in a five-run second inning and added a two-run double in the fourth frame to power the Cougars to their ninth win of the season against just three losses.

"I've been struggling lately," said Powell. "I just had some confidence today, got some hits in, and it gives me more confidence for later in the season to get more hits. We're on a good pace right now. We're playing great defense, great pitching, and we're going to win a lot of ball games this year."

"Keith had two doubles today, hit the ball real well," said Cranford head coach Dennis McCaffery. "He's a hard-working young man and really has been trying to put in extra time getting himself ready, and he had a good game today offensively as well as defensively. He's very sound at third base."

Junior Mark Osofsky has been red-hot all season, and added to his .400 batting average with a pair of RBI's. Juniors Eric Walano and Greg Matlosz also batted in a pair of runs to pace the 14-hit attack.

"I'm just trying to stay back on the ball, and just try to hit it where it's pitched, and not roll over and hit ground balls," Osofsky said. "It was a really good win for us I think, because we were coming off of two weekend losses. We just hit the ball very well, pitched it well and played great defense. Three good things that helped us win the game today."

"Mark is a solid hitter," said McCaffery. "He can handle several pitches at the plate. He really has been able to drive in some runs with the top of our order getting guys in. He's a good situational hitter. He's off to a good start this year so far."

Meanwhile, pitcher Vinnie Colaneri earned the win, giving up three runs on four hits while striking out six as he improved to 2-0. Freshman Ryan Williamson polished off the final two innings with a five-strikeout performance.

"The curveball was good today," said Colaneri. "Everybody was hitting, the defense was good. Everybody came up clutch. I'm excited we 10-runned them. It was a good game to win. We were the better team."

"Today, Vinny threw the ball very well," said McCaffery. "He was able to throw his three pitches for strikes. He had command of both sides of the plate. We were able to get runs across and win the ball game."

Colaneri improved his record to 2-0, mixing up his pitches between the fastball, curve and change-up. He feels his outside fastball is his bread-and-butter pitch. But now it's time to look ahead.

"We just have to get ready for counties," Colaneri said. "Every game is big right now. I wish we could have won the last two games against Union and Jackson. But we're confident. We're probably the best team in the county right now. That's our point of view right now."

And while the defense and pitching are holding up just fine, the Cougars are putting in extra time in the batting cage to help improve the offense.

"To the kids' credit, they have recognized that we havn't been putting up as many runs as we have in the past in our program, and we've been going to the gym in the morning to get extra hitting, as well as staying after practice. We're confident that we'll be able to get the three phases going and we're hopefully going to be able to do it."

The Cougars will face Hillside this afternoon before playing in the final of the Watchung Hills tournament against South Plainfield on Sunday. The county seeding meeting is set for Monday night.