American Heritage Continues Spring Perfection With 3-0 Win Over Doral

The year started a little rocky for American Heritage, but the team is gaining momentum as they head towards the second half of the season. The Patriots won for the third time this week at the Selective Recruiting Invitational spring break tournament when they defeated Doral Academy 3-0 yesterday.

Heritage has started playing some of their best baseball of the season in recent weeks, and it is no wonder that the team is doing so when fully healthy for the first time this year. On Wednesday, ace pitcher Jimmy Nesselt continued to get stronger as the season goes on, throwing a complete game shutout. Nesselt gave up only three hits and struck out four in the game. Nesselt threw more pitches than he had all season, but Head Coach Todd Fitz-Gerald had game planned for that.

“We want to extend him a little bit each time out,” said Fitz-Gerald. “He didn’t want to come out of the game, and we’re trying to get into the championship. We needed the shutout to get any kind of chance, so, we got that done today, and he threw the ball outstanding. I couldn’t be happier for him.”

Nesselt was helped out by his battery mate, co-captain Brandon Sedell. The senior helped on both the defensive and offensive sides of the game. Sedell threw out two runners stealing when the game was still tight early on, and went 2-for-4 with two RBIs at the plate. Sedell, having been around for several years, was one of the steady influences for a young team when they struggled early.

“I was just telling everyone to stay positive, we’re a young team, and I just explained to all the young guys it’s part of the game,” said Sedell, “We lost some one run and two run games on last inning hits. I was just telling everyone to keep working hard and we’ll come around, and we’re coming around now.”

The battle with Doral was not an easy one. The game was scoreless into the fourth when junior Brandon Lopez led off with a single. After stealing second, Lopez moved to third on a ground out by Derrick Fritz. Mike Marlin then lifted the first pitch he saw to left field for a sacrifice fly.

Heritage scored two more in the fifth when Brandon Vicens walked and Brandon Diaz singled. Sedell then hit a base hit which scored Vicens easily. Diaz hustled around third and also scored on the single when the Doral center fielder was slow in getting the ball back to the infield. That made the score 3-0, and the Patriots never looked back.

For Fitz-Gerald, the small ball and good pitching was pleasing.

“Lately it’s been key,” said Fitz-Gerald, when commenting on his team’s ability to execute the fundamentals. “We’ve been moving guys over when we had to move them over, and getting them in when we had to get them in. We wanted to get that first run. We felt like Jimmy had good stuff and was capable of shutting these guys out, and he came out and threw a gem, and we got things done.”

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