Lions Return North

The Lacey baseball team left New Jersey for Myrtle Beach, S.C. on April 16 hoping to find warmer weather and a few wins on its trip.

The weather was indeed much better, but the results were all too similar.

The Lions continued their early-season struggles by going 1-3 during their trip down south against a difficult schedule of teams, all of which were from New York State.

"The record wasn’t what we wanted it to be, but we played some really good competition and I think we’re coming back better than when we left,” Lacey coach Jack Mahar said.

The trip leaves the Lions 3-6 entering this week’s slate of games, which begins Wednesday against Manchester, the second place team in the Shore Conference Class B South.

“There’s always a concern when you take a trip like this that you’re going to lose more than you win,” Mahar said. “We certainly didn’t want to go down there and lose four games, but that wasn’t the focus of the trip. It was to give the players in our program a chance to play a lot of baseball and they got some real good work in."

The Myrtle Beach schedule began on April 17 with a 5-1 loss to Fairport of N.Y., a game in which Lions senior Pat Jensen drove in the game’s first run with a single in the first inning, only to have Lacey’s bats go quiet the rest of the way.

The offense woke up the next day with six runs in the first three innings against Whitesboro en route to a 10-5 win. Lacey collected 14 hits in the win and five different players had two hits.

Senior catcher Matt Cecere went 2-for-3 with a triple and three RBI and Jensen went 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI. Ryan Reitmeyer, Brian Emerson and Nick Breden also had two hits a piece in the win.

Lacey’s pitching then hit the wall in the next two games, a 12-3 loss to Victor High School and a 12-2 defeat at the hands of Liverpool of N.Y. Liverpool scored seven runs in the first inning on Thursday and banged out 16 hits. Pat Jensen again went 2-for-4 in Wednesday’s loss to Victor, as did Reitmeyer.

“Liverpool’s lineup was relentless,” Mahar said. “They hit everything. We spotted some pitches and they still hit them hard.”

The starting pitching actually faltered in all four games, with Jensen only lasting into the second inning in Monday’s win. Jensen is still winless on the season and while he has had his normal velocity, he is still searching for his command, Mahar said.

“He’s been working in the bullpen,” Mahar said of Jensen. “It’s all mechanical stuff and we’ve identified it, so now it’s just a matter or ironing it out and getting him throwing the ball over the plate again. The stuff is still all there, so when he finds his command, he’ll be just fine. When he’s right, there’s nobody better.”

While the Lions came back with a worse record than the one with which they left, the weather was not the only positive of the trip. Jensen and Cecere both continued to swing hot bats and Kevin Hanula hit a home run in the loss to Victor.

The future of the program looks bright based on the week in Myrtle Beach, most notably on the mound. While the starting pitching put Lacey behind, the relief effort picked up the slack.

Junior Brian Emerson allowed one run in three innings of relief in the loss to Fairport after senior Brett Dunkley pitched the first three innings. After Jensen left the second game of the trip, junior Ryan Hanula pitched 3 1/3 innings of one-run ball to earn his first varsity win with freshman Eric Reitmeyer pitching two perfect innings to close out the game.

The junior varsity team also had a strong week, going 4-0 behind freshmen Connor Rooney and Tyler Dixon, who both hit over .500 on the trip. Andrew Campatasto, Austin Peck and Richie Henwood also pitched in at the plate, while Henwood, James Angella and Nick Stevens led the pitching staff.

Rooney and Dixon also got looks with the varsity team, with Rooney throwing three innings in the loss to Victor.

“There was more good than bad this week,” Mahar said. “We’ve got some really good-looking young players out there and we got to see them in some game situations this week.

“We hit the ball well and we had two errorless games, so we played well at times. We just played some very good competition and didn’t pitch as well as we needed to.”