Bridgewater-Raritan Overpowers SPF Baseball, 10-1

THE RECORDS:  baseball team entered its game against Bridgewater-Raritan at the Roselle Park “Dad’s Club Invitational” with a season record of 5-3. Bridgewater-Raritan was 1-3.

THE SCORE: Bridgewater-Raritan, 10 -1. Costly mistakes by the Raiders, combined with a two-hit, one-run outing by Bridgewater-Raritan starting pitcher Jordan Weinstein, led to a dominating win by BR.

Brandon Durant, Andrew Lyman, Andrew Calabrese and Ben Silber led the scoring effort for BR. The Raiders’ lone run came off a leftfield homerun by senior first baseman Sean Reilly.

Scotch Plains starter John Howarth, who gave up five runs in three-plus innings, took the loss. His record fell to 1-2. James D’Angelo, Ryan Haggerty and Connor Thompson pitched in relief.

THE QUOTES: “We have to do better as a pitching staff, and that’s throw more strikes,” Scotch Plains head coach Tom Baylock said. “We throw too many pitches and the pitch count gets up.”

BR’s Weinstein, by comparison, proved “pretty good,” Baylock said. “He wasn’t overpowering, but he threw a bunch of different pitches, including a slider and a two-seamer or something that was dropping at the last minute. He did a good job of keeping us off balance.”

WHAT’S NEXT: Scotch Plains will next play at Union County Conference-Watchung Division rival Union Tuesday at 4 p.m. and then host non-conference foe North Plainfield at 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday. The first conference game against archrival Westfield is set for Thursday at 4 p.m. at Westfield. Scotch Plains is then scheduled to host conference-crossover opponent Johnson next Saturday at noon. The 4 p.m. conference home game against Westfield that was rained out on April 1 has been re-scheduled for May 9.

SCOTCH PLAINS IN DAD’S CLUB INVITATIONAL: The Raiders are now 1-2 in the first three Dad’s Club Invitationals at Roselle Park. On the Saturday in 2009, Scotch Plains defeated Bridgewater-Raritan 5-1. On the Sunday in 2010, the Raiders lost to Bloomfield 6-4. BR is also 1-2, including a 6-4 loss to Morristown on the Sunday last year. Scotch Plains head coach Tom Baylock is a 1992 Roselle Park graduate and was to be honored along with some 80 other Roselle Park baseball alumni Saturday night.

ROSELLE PARK DAD’S CLUB INVITATIONAL
BRIDGEWATER-RARITAN (2-3)              0   0   2     6   2   0     0 – 10   9  1
SCOTCH PLAINS-FANWOOD (5-4)         0   0   0     1   0   0     0 –   1   2  7

WINNING PITCHER:
Senior right hander Jordan Weinstein (1-0)
LOSING PITCHER:
Senior right hander John Howarth (1-2)
DOUBLES - Bridgewater-Raritan: Andrew Calabrese, Andrew Lyman.
Scotch Plains: Francis Degnan.
TRIPLES – Bridgewater-Raritan: None. Scotch Plains: None.
HOME RUNS – Bridgewater-Raritan: None. Scotch Plains: Sean Reilly.