Kochanowski's Solid Effort Spoiled by Brick

In an attempt to stop their recent three-game losing streak, the Lacey High School baseball team turned to junior pitcher Victor Kochanowski.

The right-hander went six innings, turning in a complete game, however, defensively the Lions were unable to pick him up, allowing four unearned runs.

"He was fantastic," said Lacey head coach JackMahar. "It was his best performance of the year, maybe even best out of our staff. He threw 73 pitches and ended up getting a little unlucky."

In the bottom of the sixth inning, three errors allowed Brick to take the lead. Lacey allowed the Brick leadoff hitter to reach second base as a hard hit ball could not be controlled at third base. After the next batter singled, there were  runners on first and third with no outs.

Brick sandwiched a hit between two strikeouts that brought a run home to give the Dragons a 2-1 lead. The next batter reached on an error to load the bases for Brick's Rich Zonin, who hit a single that would see two runs score.

Surprisingly, in five of the six innings the Dragons lead off man reached, they  scored only twice off of errors.

In the first inning, catcher Matt Cecere threw out the Dragons' Nick Vitale in a steal attempt of second base. Kochanowski later picked off the leadoff man in the second, who reached on an error. In the bottom of the third, a double play helped Kochanowski get out of the inning.

"He did not yield a single walk today, that was huge for us." said Mahar.

Lacey did even better in seeing their leadoff men reach base in six of seven innings.

"We did a better job of getting on base today, but we struggled to create much. We got caught stealing, failed to get bunts down. It was a lot of the little things today." said Mahar.

Ryan Reitmeyer started the game for the Lions with a single in the top of the first. After being thrown out in a stealing attempt, Patrick Jensen hit a solo home run.

To his credit, Reitmeyer reached base in all four plate appearences going 2 for 2 and reaching on two errors.

With his home run, Jensen earned the praise of his coach.

"He's our leading hitter for us right now," said Mahar.

Jensen picked up another RBI in the seventh inning, where his single brought home freshman Eric Reitmeyer to cut the score to 4-2. Matt Cecere reached base representing the tying run in the bottom of the seventh, but Anthony Marotta grounded out to end the game. The junior was 2-for-4 for the day.

Saturday, April 30, the Lions will be in action at 1:30 p.m., traveling to Toms River North.