Baseball – Colts Ride Dalatri Into the MCT Final

Monmouth County Tournament Bracket

LAKEWOOD – Following the sixth complete-game effort of his sophomore season Monday against Freehold Township in the Monmouth County Tournament semifinals at FirstEnergy Park, Christian Brothers Academy sophomore Luca Dalatri sang the praises of the Patriots lineup as though they figured out the secret to hitting him.

Whatever Freehold Township figured out hardly made a dent in Dalatri’s still spotless armor, as the sophomore improved to 7-0 and the Colts scored three runs over the first two innings to give their ace enough support in a 3-2 win over the Patriots.

Dalatri allowed one earned run on five hits, did not walk a batter and struck out nine in the victory, giving him 63 strikeouts against five walks on the season. The earned run he allowed in the top of the sixth was just the fourth against Dalatri this year, two of which were scored by Freehold Township.

“They made some really good adjustments and overall, they had the best approach I’ve seen from any team this year,” said Dalatri, whose second match-up of the season Monday was the first time a team has faced him twice this year. “There was no pitch they didn’t hit. At some point during the game, all of my pitches got hit pretty hard, which made me really focus on locating and mixing things up to keep them off balance.”

Although he allowed a ringing double to Patriots catcher Joe Silvestrone with two out in the first inning, Dalatri enjoyed his most dominant stretch of the game during the opening two frames, when he struck out five of the first seven men who came to the plate. Dalatri had not pitched since an 11-0 win over Wall on May 3, giving him eight days of rest between starts.

Luca Dalatri strikeout to end the 2nd from All Shore Media on Vimeo.

“I’ve pitched on some nice fields while playing travel ball, but nothing like this, obviously,” Dalatri said of pitching on the minor league diamond in Lakewood. “Needless to say, I was pretty amped up, especially with the long break between starts. I felt really good getting warmed up, and I think I was just anxious to get back on the mound.”

As its hitters did during the last time they faced Dalatri in a 4-1 CBA win on April 28, Freehold Township tried to attack him early in the count, which worked for Silvestrone in the first. The last four of the Patriots’ hits, however, came from behind in the count.

Dalatri strikeout to end the 5th from All Shore Media on Vimeo.

CBA scored two runs in the first, when Brandon Martorano and Pate Papcun both singled and first baseman John Moschella drove in Martorano with an RBI single to left that gave CBA a 1-0 lead. Papcun moved to third and scored on two wild pitches by Freehold Township starter Chris Talbott.

“We’ve talked a lot about our approach lately, and we want to come out aggressive early in the game to take advantage of early opportunities to score,” Moschella said. “We’ve had a lot of games where we score runs early and stop, which is kind of what happened today. With Luca on the mound, though, we know if we can put up some early runs, he’s going to make them hold up.”

John Moschella RBI single in the 1st from All Shore Media on Vimeo.

The Colts tacked on another run in the second when Griffin Arnott reached on an error, stole two bases and scored on another wild pitch by Talbott.

“We’ve been taking too many pitches at the plate and as a coaching staff, we’re trying to get guys to look for their pitch early in the at-bat and hit it when it comes,” said CBA coach Marty Kenney, who lent Dalatri his No. 7 jersey when Dalatri told Kenney he forgot his. “Maybe we’re overthinking things a bit too much up there, and I think that’s probably costing us in a few other areas as well.”

Talbott settled into the game after the first two innings and finished by allowing just one hit the rest of the way. In six innings, the senior right-hander allowed two earned runs on four hits and three walks - one intentional - while striking out four.

Nick Cardace drove in both Freehold Township runs on two RBI singles, the first in the fourth and the second in the sixth to cut the Patriots deficit to 3-2. Talbott also went 1-for-3 and scored both runs thanks to two stolen bases.

Nick Cardace RBI single in the 4th from All Shore Media on Vimeo.

CBA will play in Wednesday night's final at FirstEnergy Park against No. 3 Colts Neck, the second of at least three meetings between the Class A North teams. The Colts entered Monday with a three-game losing streak, all with pitchers other than Dalatri on the mound. With the sophomore ace starting, CBA is 7-0 this year and without him on the mound, the Colts are just 4-5. CBA will send Mike Garvey (2-1, 2.02 ERA) to the mound Wednesday night.

“Our other pitchers haven’t been that bad, it’s just we’ve made mistakes,” Kenney said. “It’s not even that we’ve made a lot of mistakes, we’ve just made costly ones at the wrong time. That hasn’t happened when Luca is on the mound, so hopefully we can carry some of the things we did today defensively and bring them in the championship game.”

Box Score

CBA 3, Freehold Twp. 2

2B: Silvestrone
SB: Talbott 2, Carrier, Gordon

2B: Morgan
IBB: Moschella (by Talbott)
SB: Arnott 2
CS: Shaw, Ramiz

Pitches-Strikes: Talbott 84-50, Dalatri 96-77
Groundouts-Flyouts: Talbott 3-8, Dalatri 5-5