Baseball

A call to arms

Chapel Field’s Travis Renwick blanks depleted, inexperienced Eldred to complete series sweep

By RICHARD A. ROSS

ELDRED, NY - For most high school baseball teams, playing four games in one week puts an undue strain on a pitching staff that may have two or three bona fide starters and a compliment of other who can give innings here and there. That is especially true when you have a young and inexperienced team such as the one Eldred coach Frank Kean is trying to school on the fly this spring.

This week, Eldred played three games against league rival Chapel Field and then had to play its fourth game of the week on the road against Fallsburg on May 4. Where Kean was going to find enough pitching to get him through the week’s last outing was anybody’s guess, but he had a freshman knuckleball pitcher in Bobby Warden to start the game.

Warden’s nifty knuckler, which he learned from his uncle Bill, was the only bright spot for Eldred as it succumbed to Chapel Field 21-0 in the series finale on May 3. Warden came on to pitch the final innings of the game and toughed his way through. Although he surrendered runs, just like the three pitchers that had tried to hold Chapel Field at bay prior to his entry with bases loaded and no out in the fifth, the young hurler showed his guile and potential.

Kean and the Yellowjackets are trying to grit their way through one of those down years. Watching his varsity players, who are still learning the basics normally acquired at the modified or junior varsity level, is about understanding the cycle of ups and downs that small schools like Eldred face.

While Kean is still blessed with a wealth of football talent for this coming fall’s quest to regain the Class D title, baseball is an entirely different matter.

Kean has only one senior on the squad that is comprised of five freshman, three sophomores and mostly juniors. Senior Phil Talley gave the Yellowjackets their best chance of winning a game in the series middle game on May 1. A senior is expected to lead by example and Talley did just that by pitching a complete game and keeping Chapel Field’s potentially explosive hitters pretty much at bay.

With a more experienced defense behind him, it is likely he could have steered Eldred to its first win of the season. He helped his cause by reaching on an E-4 and coming around to score in the third inning. Justin Smith and Nick Simonelli also scored and Eldred took a 3-0 lead against Chapel Field hurler Joe Schlegel.

The Lions got one run back in the fourth on an RBI double by Mike Sofia. Taking advantage of Eldred’s young catcher, Chapel Field parlayed a walk, a stolen base and three singles into a pair of runs in the sixth to tie the game with RBI from Sofia and Mike Wilson.

Chapel Field got the go-ahead run in the seventh when two errors allowed Mike Dunn to score to give the Lions a 4-3 win, a far cry from the 11-1 mismatch in the series opener.

Kean and company hoped they had turned the corner and could come out and be as competitive in the series finale on May 3, but from the get go it was clear that the Yellowjackets weren’t going to get the same kind of outing they got from Talley two days prior. Talley was destined to see innings in the ensuing 8-6 loss to Fallsburg on May 4.

Against Chapel Field, Eldred starter Mike Walton lasted only three innings and yielded six runs before Kean inserted Smith, who was gone one third of an inning later. Chris Mehedin had already logged innings this week. By the time the fourth inning was over Chapel Field had piled on six more runs and this game was just a matter of going through the paces and getting it over with, especially with the sharp, crisp pitching that Chapel Field was delivering through the hands of sophomore Travis Renwick.

Renwick, who is the brother of Chapel Field softball ace Ashley, who is now continuing her sterling career at Orange County Community College, tossed a no-hitter against the Yellowjackets in a complete game gem.

Warden did reach first in the second inning, but this writer scored that as an E-5. The point is moot. Chapel Field scored it as an error and gave Renwick the cold shoulder in the dugout so as not to jinx the no-no.

Chapel Field coach Joe Canazon, who was also facing a four-game week, had hoped Renwick could eat up innings and save his pitching staff the added burden of having to pitch by committee, something they did in their week-ending win on May 4 on the road against John A. Coleman Catholic.

He got his wish and then some.

Chapel Field was paced by multi-hit games from Zac Menendez, who also had a towering solo home run, Matt Dunn, Matt Pooley and Renwick, who helped out his cause by reaching safely on walks and hitting a sac fly.

Canazon felt badly for Kean and his team. “I’ve been there,” he noted. He tried in every way possible to keep the runs from piling up by limiting his runners to a single base and even turning switch hitter Zac Menendez around. Unfortunately, Zac sees the ball even better from the opposite side of the plate.

It just wasn’t Eldred’s day.

Chapel Field improved to 8-1 (6-0 OCIAA). The Lions’ only loss came at the hands of Class B Sullivan West. The record for Eldred moved down a notch with the loss to Fallsburg, a game that the Yellowjackets were in nearly all the way. The defeat made it a 0-9 start to the season for Eldred.

Expect Kean to continue his patient teaching, which will manifest itself in a steady improvement in things that may not necessarily show up in box scores. With such a calm and game savvy skipper at the helm, Eldred may falter, but it will never sink even if it doesn’t break into the win column this season. After all, the young boys in green are learning a lot more than they ever knew about the great game of baseball, and with Kean as their teacher you can be sure that some of the lessons they are garnering will have lifelong value as well.

Visit riverreportersports.com for an album of pictures from the final game of the Eldred-Chapel Field series.