By Robert Cole
With several players unavailable while on vacation, Construction coach Daniel Paradis used the opening round of the 49th Annual James Monroe Campus Holiday Invitational Baseball Tournament to reward some of his younger players with game experience and play other starters in different positions.
That resulted in a 13-3 loss, as the Redhawks fell to the Bronx’s Bathgate Bulldogs at George Washington Field last Saturday in Manhattan.
“It’s our first game in the tournament and it was tough day,” Paradis said. “We played a tough game, made a couple of errors here and there and they got ahead after the fourth inning. We are a young team and we played hard, but we did not pull it off.”
Bathgate jumped ahead to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but Construction responded in style during the bottom half of the frame.
Marcus Ortiz started the inning with single. He stole third base after being forced to second when Matthew Serrata walked. Ortiz scored Construction’s first run on a wild pitch, knotting the score at 1-1. The Redhawks loaded the bases when Justin Garcia reached after being hit by a pitch, and Nicholas Font followed with a walk. After back-to-back strikeouts, Xavier Tejada showed patience at the plate, working a walk that brought home another run, giving the Redhawks a 2-1 lead going into the second inning.After giving the lead up in the top of the third, Construction reclaimed it in the bottom half after loading the bases and scoring on another walk, this time by Erick Aybar, as the Redhawks went up 3-2. However, Construction’s defense struggled in the fourth, when a series of errors, combined with some walks and a hit batsman, led to six unearned runs for Bathgate. The Redhawks couldn’t recover and ultimately fell 13-3.
Despite the tough loss, Paradis said he believes his team will bounce back and put together a strong season in 2018.
“We should be alright. We are in a strong division, but we are a good team,” he said. “We were shorthanded today, but we will be alright.”
