Vault Into First By Beating ‘Lawmen’
Rienzi & Sons improved to 9-3 and moved into first place with a 2-0 victory over Cutrone’s Lawmen on Friday, June 1.
It was expected to be a close match up as the two teams played earlier in the season with Cutrone’s pulling out a walk off 6-5 victory.
With both teams choosing to go with their number one pitchers, the game quickly turned into a pitchers duel. August Larsen got the call for Rienzi and pitched four scoreless innings, striking out six and yielding only a single walk and three hits. He was efficient in his pitch count and the Rienzi defense played flawlessly
Derek Portalatin, Aidan Mooney and Sam Navarra led the defense with several putouts at short and second. A heads up play by Frank Navarra on an errant throw ended a potential scoring threat by Cutrone’s in the first.
Larsen was evenly matched by Shane Vazquez who pitched well for Cutrone’s. Rienzi forced a run home in the first on an infield pop fly off the bat of Aidan Mooney that scored Nicolas Hutson from third.
Rienzi scored again in the third when Brandon Balsamo walked and came home on a hard single by Larsen to right. Sam Navarra followed with a double, but Rienzi stranded the two base runners. In all, Vazquez finished with eight strikeouts in three innings yielding two runs on three hits. Jose Reyes ptiched the final two innings for Cutrone’s and kept Rienzi scoreless, striking out five of the seven batters he faced.
For the final two innings, Rienzi turned to their closer Frank Navarra. Navarra pitched two perfect innings, facing only six batters, getting three infield grounders and striking out three to get the save.
