PLAYOFFS: Trojans Push Game Three Behind Duff

After falling in game one to Island Trees, the Garden City baseball team knew that with their season on the line they wanted to hand the ball to their ace.

James Duff accepted the challenge and came through for his team, allowing just six hits in a complete game 6-2 win that pushes the series to a deciding game three on Thursday.

Mike Borges and James Cauchi each deposited a ball over the right center field fence to help their pitcher, and Frank Cordio and Matt Focella completed a rare 5-3-5 spirit shattering double play to help Duff and the Trojans keep their season alive at least one more game.

“I think we played about a near perfect game out there today. It was just about the complete opposite of what happened yesterday,” Garden City coach Rich Smith, who celebrated his 601st career win, said afterwards. “Jimmy had a great game and wasn’t laboring at all, only throwing 79 pitches, and the home runs were huge to get ahead early.”

Borges got the Trojans on the board early with a towering fly ball to right off of Mike Jeanetti that narrowly cleared the fence to give his team a one run lead. Both teams’ offenses remained dormant until the fourth inning, when Garden City broke the game open.

After Dan Muller was hit on the shoulder by a pitch and stole second, Borges singled to put runners on the corners with two outs. A few pitches later, Cauchi took a hanging change up and drilled it for a home run to right to give his team a 5-0 lead, more than Duff would need.

Smith was pleased that Cauchi cleared the bases, after his team left the bases loaded twice earlier and finished with 12 runners left on base.

“The Cauchi homerun was a real back breaker – he’s now hit in 24 of our 25 games on the season, and it was nice to get some of those runners in,” he said. “We weren’t getting good looks when we had guys on, and their pitchers did a good job limiting us with different pitchers.”

For most of the game, Duff silenced the Bulldogs’ bats with his array of fastballs and off speed stuff, but in the fifth inning it was his defense's chance to pick him up. With one out, Ryan McDonald singled on an 0-2 pitch to re-ignite the crowd, and give his team a glimmer of hope with one of their few base runners.

With Chris Cutrone batting, manager Joe D’Auria called for a hit and run. With McDonald dashing toward second, Cutrone smashed a ball toward third that Cordio made a sliding snag on. After pouncing to his feet and making a strong throw to first, McDonald continued running to third, where Cordio had to sprint back to field a Focella throw and make a diving tag on the runner to complete the 5-3-5 twin killer.

“We were coming back a bit there, and Ryan was trying to make things happen for the team,” D’Auria said. “Down five, that’s not always the best play, but you can’t fault him for trying to make a play.”

Smith agreed that the play was crucial to the outcome of the game, saying, “The inning could have been a rally inning for them. For Focella to nail a moving target like that is impressive.”

The impressive game by Garden City sets up one final game where the teams will battle it out for a chance to play for the Nassau County championship. The Trojans will look to a red-hot Cordio, their number two starter, to pitch them into the final, while the Bulldogs will throw Matt Bowen, their starter against Lynbrook who got them to this series.

“As good as yesterday was, today was equally bad for us,” D’Auria said. “We’ve got Bowen going, and he’s the one who pitched Saturday to get us here. We’re going to put our faith in him and there’s no one else we’d rather give the ball to.”