Strong Pitching Leads West Baseball Over Half Hollow Hills East

Smithtown West broke through with four runs in the third inning en route to a 5-2 League III victory at Half Hollow Hills East on Wednesday. The Bulls moved to 7-0 overall and 5-0 in league play behind a strong pitching performance from James English and some timely hitting.

The second game of the three game set was scoreless going into the third inning. Shortstop Rick Alessi led off with a walk, Nick Zito punched a base hit into left field and Anthony Gatto reached on an error.  Cleanup hitter Nick Dellasperanza followed by connecting on a pitch from Thunderbirds starter Vin Lafta and launched a laser down the third base line that brought in two runs and put the Bulls up 2-0. Gatto then stole home after an attempted pickoff throw and Dan Taliercio followed with a sacrifice fly. The four run third inning was more than English would need.

“He’s finally coming into his own as a pitcher,” West coach Al Nucci said of English. “He challenge’s batters, he can throw the ball by them, he can hit his spot. As long as we can keep him focused he’s a No. 1 on any staff in the county I believe.”

English picked up the complete game victory, improving his record to 3-0 on the season. He allowed those two runs to go along with five hits and three walks. He struck out seven.

“My slider was working good and after the second inning I fixed something in my mechanics and started picking up some speed,” English said. “It was big picking up those early runs, it was enough. It was a good team win.”

Lafta picked up the loss for Hills East, throwing three innings and allowing four runs, four hits and two walks while striking out two.

“They had a big inning where our pitcher wasn’t ready to get through the inning,” Hills East coach Tim Belz said. “He had a bad inning and left some pitches up and walked some guys and they came through when they needed to come through. And again we didn’t come through when we needed to come through.”

West tacked on an insurance run in the seventh when a fielder’s choice by John Deluca drove in Alessi.

“We had the one big inning where we put the four spot up,” Nucci said. “Dell had a big hit with the bases loaded to drive in two runs and we got the insurance run in the seventh which was big.”

Nucci was content with picking up the road victory but stressed that his team still needs to improve.

“We definitely need to start swinging the bats a little bit more,” he said. “We tend to have trouble with pitchers that throw off speed, kind of keep our guys off balance.

“A win is a win though,” he said. “We’ll take it.”

West and Hills East finish up their three game series Saturday morning at West. First pitch is scheduled for 10 a.m.