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Sports

Erial Shuts Out W. Deptford, Locks in Title Shot

Jake Vespa throws 4 2/3 innings of two-hit ball as Erial gets home runs from Gianni D'Antonio and Adam Holland to lift them to within one win of state tournament.

While it was the offense that carried through the District 14 tournament, the pitching has captured the headlines in the Section 4 Tournament. Now, Erial sits in the championship game, just one win away from going to the state tournament.

On Wednesday night, it was Jake Vespa's turn to throw a gem. Vespa threw 4 2/3 innings of two-hit, shutout baseball as Erial defeated West Deptford 7-0 at .

They will wait to see who will come out of the loser's bracket as their opponent for the championship, which will be held Sunday at Gloucester Little League.

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“Everything's going the way we want it to be,” said Erial manager Carl Foltz. “Guys are crisp coming out and making plays, we cut it down to zero errors today. That's the way you win ballgames.”

Vespa shut down a potent West Deptford team that rode a perfect 7-0 record in tournament play into Wednesday night's battle. Both hits that Vespa allowed in the game were singles by West Deptford starting pitcher Brian Bernetich. No one else on the team hit the ball out of the infield.

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“All my teammates just told me to keep the ball down,” said Vespa. “So that's what I did and I was able to get them to ground out.”

Vespa struck out six hitters and forced another six to ground out. The only out that Vespa recorded that was in the air was a tall pop out hit by Drew Wilden that was caught by third baseman .

“My off-speed was working and I hit my spots pretty good,” said Vespa.

In relief, was solid as well, as none of the five West Deptford hitters made contact against him. Reynolds kept them guessing by mixing his fastball and off-speed pitches, striking out four hitters to end the game. Wilden was the only West Deptford player to reach base on Reynolds, drawing a five-pitch walk.

Offensively, the seven runs were the second-fewest Erial had scored so far in tournament play. They got off to a strong start in the first inning against Bernetich. With on second base and two outs, hit a big home run to jump start Erial to a 2-0 lead. Napoli would add a third run in the inning after singling and then advancing all the way around the bases on passed balls and wild pitches.

Bernetich settled in after that, striking out the side in the second inning and retiring nine of 10 Erial batters in the second, third, and fourth innings. His only blemish was a solo home run by Holland in the third.

By the fifth, however, Bernetich wore down and Erial's lineup caught up to him. Bernetich allowed three singles in the inning which eventually led to three runs and a 7-0 lead.

Erial will get three days off before Sunday's title game. They will play one of the three remaining teams in Sunday's game: West Deptford, Linwood or Cherry Hill American. In addition to having three days off, Erial also has the advantage of not having a loss in the tournament thus far. Erial's opponent will need to win twice in order to win the championship, giving Erial a second chance if they fall short on Sunday.

However, Foltz said that Erial, currently on a five-game winning streak, has no intention of extending the tournament past Sunday.

“The gameplan is winning Sunday. We're going with the number one pitchers, and we're going to come at them as hard as we can.”

 

                    1  2  3  4  5  6     R  H  E
--------------------------------------------
Erial              3  0  1  0  3  0     7 11 0
W. Deptford   0  0  0  0  0  0     0  2  2
--------------------------------------------

W: Jake Vespa

L: Brian Bernetich

HR: Gianni D'Antonio, Adam Holland

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