EMERSON, Ga. – The Commack, N.Y.-based
Team Beast Black moved on to the semifinals in the 14u PG World Series after a 7-1
win over Baseball Northwest in the quarterfinals. The team came out swinging early,
scoring seven runs in the first inning, showcasing the potency of their
offense.
Bryan Padilla started the game off
with a walk out of the leadoff spot, and Ryan Steel followed him up with a
hit-by-pitch. After one out was recorded, the No. 4 hitter, Derek Lekhwani,
then singled to center field, loading the bases for third baseman Guy Calla,
who dumped a two-RBI single to left field. Lekhwani would score a batter later
on a throwing error on the shortstop, pushing the lead to 3-0. Chris Segreti
would single home two with a two-out single, and the lineup turned back around
to Padilla, who singled home two more. Padilla and head coach Ron Colleluori
both echoed the same approach that helped them succeed at the plate in Thursday’s
game.
“Well, coach Corey [Murphy] preaches a lot of using the
field,” Colleluori said. “We have a tendency to sometimes to get too big. They
all want to hit the ball 400 feet sometimes. When they stay short, when they
stay within themselves, when they use the whole field, that’s the kind of
offense that they can produce.”
“We just hit better in this game,” Padilla said. “We did a
nice job of hitting the ball to the right side of the field, spraying it all
over the field, and putting the ball in play where we needed to.”
That offensive outburst provided plenty of room for Beast
starter Christian Moore on the mound, who, after an 18-pitch first inning,
needed just 24 pitches over the next two to do his job on the mound. The righty
went three innings, giving up two hits and no walks, and kept hitters guessing
with a three-pitch mix.
“My fastball, I like to locate on the outside corner a lot. My
catcher [Anthony Madigan] did a good job stealing some strikes,” Moore said. “Just
throw strikes, make them hit it, locate, use all my pitches, my off-speed pitches
and just try to stay ahead with my fastball or any other pitch.”
The 6-foot-1, 180-pound righty, although having previously
been clocked as fast as 86 mph on the mound, sat in the low-80s and high-70s,
focusing more on his control. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native gave the offense’s
early efforts the credit for him being able to be comfortable on the mound. Colleluori
saw that too, and praised the righty for doing exactly what he needed to do.
“I think with Christian, it’s really he has to stay within himself,”
Colleluori said. “Sometimes he’s got a tremendous amount of talent, and
sometimes he wants to throw that ball 98 mph, when 78 will do just fine. I think
Christian did a tremendous job staying composed, coming out, staying within
himself, he didn’t even need to reach back to his potential, he got it done by
just doing what he needed to do within himself.”
Kyle Colleluori came in behind Moore and provided four
strong innings, surrendering just one hit and one run in that span. He needed
only 46 pitches to finish off Baseball Northwest, locking down the win for his
team.
The 7-1 quarterfinal win was a nice bounce back after being
shutout in their last game of pool play 6-0 against the Dirtbags. In a typical
tournament, more emphasis would have been place on that last semifinal game,
but with Team Beast coming into that game with a 3-0 record, it was an
opportunity to save pitching, as they feature only 10 players in this
tournament.
“Well, first, we obviously knew that the pool play game
yesterday didn’t mean anything for us. We were already in a position to already
be the pool winner,” Ron Colleluori said. “We are a very small group of local
players from the Long Island Metro area, and we came down here with just 10,
and at the point in yesterday’s game, we couldn’t afford to burn any other arm
that was left, so that’s the big difference in my opinion from yesterday to
today.”
The 7-1 win was that much more important for the team on Thursday,
and using just two pitchers allowed them to have more fresh arms moving into Friday.
The team has received length from their starters throughout the tournament so
far, with three of them going five or more innings, and Ron Colleluori said
that will be the key moving forward.
Offensively, Team Beast has scored 22 runs so far and has
shown that they can hit good pitching, posting seven runs against the Banditos
Scout Team and five runs against the Georgia Roadrunners. Padilla has been the
catalyst to the lineup, collecting six hits, four RBIs and two stolen bases out
of the leadoff spot. The No. 2 player in New York in the class of 2020 finished
the quarterfinal game 2-for-3 with two RBIs, a walk and a run scored, setting
the tone from the start.
“Bryan is an all-around tremendous talent,” Ron Colleluori
said. “Bryan’s got all the tools. Bryan’s got the speed, he’s got the power, he’s
got the arm, he’s got the intelligence. Bryan’s a 5-tool player, and when you
put a kid like that out to lead the team, it’s as simple as, he goes, we go,
and he has that kind of ability, and that’s what kids follow.”
The team hopes that they can bring this momentum into the semifinal
and championship games on Friday morning beginning at 10:30 a.m. Their first
task will be facing the No. 1-seeded Stix Baseball Club, who stunned the
Banditos Scout Team by scoring two runs in the bottom of the sixth to go ahead,
and one run in bottom of the seventh to win the game 3-2 after surrendering the
lead in the top half. Although Ron Colleluori knows that the odds are stacked
against them because of their small roster, he knows that they possess the
mentality needed to continue on and win the tournament.
“It’s a gut-check now. They know it. We play with 10 because
we want everyone coming down here, and we believe in everyone, but obviously,
when you go a week-long tournament and the competition that Perfect Game brings
to you every game, they know now we’re on our fumes and it’s a gut-check,” Ron Colleluori
said. “They’ve got to dig very deep now to actually become victorious tomorrow,
and that’s what we’re looking for, we’re looking for all the heart they have to
be left out here tomorrow.”