The Phillipsburg Stateliner Boys Baseball team opened its season on Saturday, April 4th, hosting the Chatham Cougars. Senior Pitcher Nick Yaccarino started the Liners off smoothly. Despite giving up a single run in the first, he quickly settled in and controlled the early innings.
The Stateliner bats were ready to strike early and did just that in the first inning. Senior Chase Pasmore doubled to score fellow senior Mike Bracco. Back at it in the second inning, with one out and runners at 1st and 3rd, Bracco grounded out to short, sending in another run and taking the Liners to a 2-1 lead.
Phillipsburg escaped the top of the fourth in style. After giving up back-to-back line drives to the first two batters, Yaccarino picked up his first out by throwing to third and beating an attempted steal. Chatham again sent another line drive to right field, putting runners on 1st and 2nd with only one out. A shallow pop out to center followed, and Phillipsburg was able to make the easy 2nd out and also catch the Chatham runner off of first base – saving the inning for the Stateliners and Yaccarino.
After a scoreless fifth inning, the Liners got into some fielding trouble in the sixth. Chatham was able to put up 2 runs off back-to-back fielding errors and take the Cougars to a 3-2 lead. Chatham scored another run in the 7th off of Pburg reliever Joey Goldring. Finishing strong, the Cougars struck out the side in the bottom of the seventh to end the game at 4-2.
“We had a lot of opportunities to add on more runs in key spots early in the game, but couldn’t find the one hit we needed to take advantage of the number of baserunners we had,” said Phillipsburg head coach Michael Ciavarella. “Defensively, a couple little mistakes added up to cost us in the 6th. We need to clean up our defense.”
Expectant for his team this season, Ciaverella added, “We have a lot of seniors, so we are hoping some of them can be leaders and guys we can count on to drive in runs. On the pitching side, Nick (Yaccarino) is our ace, but we will need to find out who our number 2 and 3 starters will be, as well as our top relievers.”
Next up for the Stateliners at the Phillipsburg Athletic Complex will be on Thursday, April 9th, at 4:00 p.m. against the Somerville Pioneers.
