Pitchers rule the day, but South Brunswick gets clutch hits to sweep doubleheader from Edison

In a rarity in high school baseball – where’s Elias Sports Bureau when you need them to find out how rare? – all four starting pitchers went the distance in Tuesday’s GMC Red Division doubleheader between South Brunswick and Edison, but it was the Vikings that got just enough clutch hits to sweep the twin-bill from the Eagles.

South Brunswick won the opener 3-1, thanks to Teonis Pimentel’s two-RBI triple to open the scoring in the fifth-inning. It followed a one-out triple down the line by Mattox Lim and David Rybinski getting hit by a pitch. Charles Soriano added a sac fly to score Pimentel.

Edison cut it to 3-1 in the sixth when Jaxon Appelman hit a sac fly to center to score Jordan Martins, but that was all they would get.

Appelman was trying to help his cause, as he allowed just five hits in seven innings of work, striking out 11. But he took the hard-luck loss to fall to 2-3, while Nolan Watlington pitched a complete-game two-hitter for South Brunswick, striking out four, allowing just one run. He’s now 2-0.

In the second game, after a long first inning with several stoppages and an overturned call that turned a hit batsman into a strikeout, both pitchers picked up the pace. And both were cruising into the sixth.

In the bottom of the inning, Ethan Fantel worked out a two-out walk, then Peter Cortez drove him in with a double to make it 1-0. All of a sudden, Edison was down to its final three outs. They threatened, as Paul DiCarlo reached on an error by the shortstop, then stole second base to put the tying run in scoring position.

But South Brunswick starter Joey Tuttoilmondo – one of the best pitchers in the GMC – struck out Matt Yascko to end the game. It was his 13th strikeout in the game, a seven-inning, one-hit effort that improved his record to 4-1 and gives him 58 strikeouts on the year to go with just 11 walks.