Hawks win freshman baseball title in extras

By Jacob Marrocco
Posted 6/16/16

Hendricken pitcher Kyle Marrapese turned into Madison Bumgarner on Monday night. The lefty twirled a complete-game gem across eight innings, allowing one run on one hit on 115 pitches, and he showed up at the

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Hawks win freshman baseball title in extras

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Hendricken pitcher Kyle Marrapese turned into Madison Bumgarner on Monday night.

The lefty twirled a complete-game gem across eight innings, allowing one run on one hit on 115 pitches, and he showed up at the dish as well. He scored the game-tying run and knocked in the game-winning run in the Hawks’ 2-1 victory over La Salle in the freshman baseball championship game.

“I was getting really nervous during the game, knowing that we were down for most of the game, but I had confidence in my team knowing that we would find a way to get it done,” Marrapese said.

The Hawks (27-0, 16-0 league) had stranded eight runners on base through the first six innings, an anomaly for the best offense in the state in the regular season. They still found themselves down 1-0 heading into their final at-bats, just the seventh run Hendricken allowed all season in league play.

“Yeah, we were nervous,” Hendricken manager Dan Rice said about heading to the last inning still down a run. “But I had a feeling with this team all along this year, that they were going to find some way how to do this. They were gonna figure it out.”

Marrapese got the inning started with a single into right field. After La Salle starter Joe Rego got Jordan Marot to go down swinging, No. 9 hitter Josh Stravato laid down a sacrifice bunt attempt to move Marrapese along. Throwing issues plagued Rego, though, as he committed his third error of the day, allowing the toss to get under Jordan Griffin’s glove at first base. Marrapese scampered to third as the tying run.

Leadoff hitter David Bordieri came through in the clutch, hitting a sacrifice fly to left field that scored Marrapese to knot the score at 1.

Marrapese continued his dazzling performance on the mound in the first and only extra frame. A strikeout and passed ball put the first batter, Jackswell Martinez, on first for Rego. It looked as though his soft grounder would put two on with no outs, but Bordieri made a heads-up play at shortstop to get the lead runner.

Another fielder’s choice and a fly out to center sent the Hawks to a dramatic home half. Captain Kevin Gower drilled a one-out double into the right center field gap for the first extra-base hit of the night for either side. A fielder’s choice moved him over to third for Marrapese, who was 2-for-3 to that point.

On a 1-1 pitch, he lined a single into right field that easily scored Gower with the game-ending run.

“I knew it was [the winning hit] off the bat,” Marrapese said with a smile. “I barreled it up, I knew it was in.”

In addition to his 3-for-4 day at the plate, Marrapese held the heart of the La Salle order, its No. 3-6 hitters, to an 0-for-12 day with seven strikeouts. None of them put the ball in play out of the infield.

Rice said this team was one of the best he has ever coached, as it is just the third freshman squad to go undefeated in his tenure.

“No freshman team has done that at Hendricken, allowed seven runs,” Rice said. “They hit the bar on that one. This is the team that’s gonna stock our trout pond for the next three years. This is a great team, we’ve had two other teams like this team. This is my 20th year, I’ve only had two other teams go undefeated, a 24-0 and a 27-0, and they matched that play today because they were just as good as those teams.”

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