Eagles Soar Past Howell in Late Innings

With Middletown High School South's Eagles four outs from being eliminated from the Monmouth County Tournament, head coach Ryan Spillane had faith in his team.

Trailing to Howell, 2-1, with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, the Eagles would rally to push two runners across the plate, taking a 3-2 lead, and winning the game with that score. The move earned the team a spot in the Monmouth County Tournament semi-finals next week.

Howie Brey, who pitched for Middletown South, got the Eagles going with a one-out walk. After a fielder's choice at second base, Brian Healy would eventually score on an RBI single to left field by Sean Kennedy.

In the next at-bat, Stefan Poggioli would drive in courtesy runner Brian Wajda on an RBI double to left, while Kennedy was thrown out at home trying to score to end the inning.

"It was clutch," Middletown South head coach Ryan Spillane said, "To have [Sean] Kennedy come in and get a big hit along with [Steffan] Poggioli to have a huge hit, it's great."

Howie Brey made the start on the mound for the Eagles, throwing six strong innings. He allowed two earned runs on six hits, striking out six batters and walking two more, as he earned the win with the team's late inning heroics.

South jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning. After Rob Marcickiewicz starting things with a leadoff single to right field, courtesy runner Erik Obsteins would work his way around the bases and eventually score on a passed ball at home plate.

Brey moved Obsteins from first to second with a sacrifice bunt.

In both the fourth and fifth innings, the Eagles had runners at third base with one out, but both times, Howell pitcher Dan Watson, who will be playing at Wagner college next year, escaped trouble.

Brey lead off the fourth inning with a single, and after Wajda was sacrificed to second base by Healy, moved along to third but Mike Grossi and Kennedy each struck out, leaving Wajda at third.

Poggioli lead off the fifth inning by reaching base on an error by third basemen Brody High, and was sacrificed over to second base by Mike Gannon. Poggioli moved to third after an errant pick-off throw by Watson, but got stranded there when Chris Mangarelli struck out and Dan Sweeney grounded out to third.

The Rebels added runs in the third and fifith innings to take a 2-1 lead.

With runners on second and third with one out, Sweeney made a spectacular diving catch to limit the damage in the top of the fifth inning. Brey would escape more damage by forcing the next Howell batter to ground out to the shortstop.

Brey had also escaped damage in the second inning, when Jordan Rezier of Howell reached third after a bad pick-off throw. Brey would pick himself up and strike out the next two Rebels' batters, ending the inning and stranding Rezier on third.

"I told the guys that it was huge that we beat one of the best pitchers in the Shore Conference," Spillane said. "And it's nice that we have two of the best pitchers in the Shore Conference and we needed them today."

Will Siegfried came in to close the game in the seventh, pitching a 1-2-3 inning, while striking out the last two Howell batters.

Despite sacrifice bunting three times, South's attempt to play small-ball didn't pay off until the sixth inning, scoring twice to win the game.

"Against a kid like [Dan] Watson, you know you aren't going to score a lot of runs," Spillane said. "We were looking to play a lot of small ball. We've been practicing, improving and we did a nice job of it today."

With the win, the Eagles will move on to play Monmouth Regional later this week in the semi-finals.