New Hyde Park Baseball Tops Great Neck North, 16-2

On a bitter cold spring day the collected their first blowout win against non-conference opponent Great Neck North with a score of 16-2. New Hyde Park started off strong, and never looked back.  Playing on their , they showed confidence and strong potential for the rest of the season.

With the weather not cooperating last week, the team was finally ready to get the chance to be able to show what they have been working on. New Hyde Park showed that although they are a young team, they are a team that can compete.

Heroes: The bats of junior Kevin Towey and Andrew Pugliese helped lead the Gladiators on the offensive side. Towey was five for five, with two RBIs and two runs scored. Pugliese was three for three with a sacrifice fly and three runs scored.

On the defensive side senior Patrick Merdian commanded the mound with five strikeouts, four hits and one walk. He pitched into the sixth inning. Also a strong force in the field was Francesco Terrero who made many key plays.

Sophomore Nicholas Perrone took over the pitching duties in the top of the sixth and showed he is a force to be reckoned with. Of the four batters he faced, he struck out three.

Turning point: In the bottom of the third inning with four runs already notched into the scoreboard, the bats came alive full force for New Hyde Park. The inning started off with a double by Pugliese. Things just kept rolling from there. The bases were loaded two times in this inning and also included an RBI double from Joe Carbone. New Hyde Park at this point had scored seven runs and it was only halfway through the game.

Quotable: Coach Doug Robins outlined his team's approach to the game saying,  “Our philosophy is that we want to be very aggressive on the bases. If they are going to give us a base we are going to try and take it. We want to stretch singles into doubles and doubles into triples. We are looking to score, we want them to try and throw us out at the plate. We are daring the other team to beat us.”

Robins was also pleased with the performance of some of his younger players.

“Today was a great day because we got a lot of guys playing and a lot of young guys playing," he said. "We have 14 first year varsity players, so it was nice to get guys in and get confidence going. We are taking one game at a time.  “

Bottom Line: Robins said he felt they were a little sloppy with some signs. They need to work on two strike hitting and hit the ball the other way, making the other team make the play.

Key Stat: Stolen Bases and RBIs. There were four stolen bases and about 10 RBIs throughout the game.

Individual …………….1…..2…..3…..4…..5…..6…..T

Francesco Terrero…1…..x…..w…..x….-…….-......1

Joe Carbone ………….w….w….1…..-….1……1…….3

Diego Dilone…………1…...1…..-……-…..-……-…….2

Kevin Towey…………1……1….-…...1….1…..1……...5

Rob Scaturchio……..w……x…..-……1….w….x…….1

Guerillmo Dilone…..-……..-……-......1……-……-…1

Andrew Pugliese…...w……-…..1…..1…..1…..-…….3

Joe Thomas……………-……x…...1……1…..-…..-…….2

Team Runs……………2…..3……4……2….4…..1……16