St. Thomas Triumphs Over Nova In District Battle

On a moonlit night, the Raiders of St. Thomas Aquinas invaded Pat McQuaid Field and came away with a 4-2 victory. Wednesday night brought two big district rivals together on Nova High’s home field at Doug Amos Stadium. The anticipated match up did not disappoint. In a well-played game the Raiders used fleet base running and excellent pitching to triumph over the Nova Titans.

St. Thomas (8-1) jumps to a perfect 5-0 record in District 7A-15. Nova (6-2) remains right in the hunt at 3-1 in the district.

“Whenever these two rivals meet you can expect a hard fought, competitive game. That’s what we got tonight,” St. Thomas Manager Troy Cameron said.

St Thomas Aquinas jumped on Nova starting pitcher Vince Coletti early in the first inning. Junior left fielder Cameron Krzeminski drew a walk and stole second base. Senior center fielder Jawuan Harris followed with a walk of his own. With the pair on first and second, St. Thomas executed a double-steal and had two men in scoring position with no outs.  Coletti got Nick Marchese to ground out to the shortstop, but that brought in the Raiders first run. After a strikeout, catcher Alex Dickinson laced a single into center field to score Harris with the second Raiders run.

St Thomas starting pitcher Johnny Leone came out strong. The young sophomore right-handed pitcher got the side in order in the first and second innings.

“It is really easy to catch when you have guys like Johnny on the mound,” Dickinson said. “He throws a lot of strikes and he threw his curve ball well today.”

In the third, Titans left fielder Jose Oliva was able to reach base on a two-base infield error. Leone bore down and got a ground out, which advanced Oliva to third. He then fired a strikeout to get two outs in the inning. This brought Nova’s senior third baseman Edwin Pichardo to the plate. Pichardo sent a rocket to the base of the center-field wall, 365 feet away. This easily scored Olivia and cut the Raiders’ lead in half. Leone got out of trouble with a ground out to second to end the inning.

The Raiders added another run in the top of the fourth to go up 3-1. Dickinson hit a sharp single to center with one out. He stole second base and moved to third on a ground out. Junior third baseman Muhammed Eid hit a hopper back to the mound that Coletti handled easily, but as he was shuffling the ball to first it slipped out of his hand. This allowed Dickinson to score for St. Thomas.

“Alex started off slow this year,” Manager Troy Cameron said about Dickinson, who had two hits in the game. “He did last year also and then got rolling. He is seeing the ball well now and his swing, as we saw today, is solid. He’s in a good place.”

St. Thomas finished its scoring in the seventh inning. Pinch-hitter Gary Mattis drove a base hit to right field. Mattis promptly stole second, moved to third on an infield out, and scored on a wild pitch.

Nova could not mount a successful rally once it fell behind. Leone stifled the Titans for five innings, allowing one run on one hit. Senior Nick Marchese came to the mound in the bottom of the sixth. Nova managed to score a run off of Marchese with a double, a stolen base and an RBI sacrifice fly by Olivia. But Marchese shut them down from there to earn a save.

“We needed to get Nick some innings,” Cameron explained. “Nick’s a starter for us, but he got in an accident a while back and we are working him back into the rotation.”

As good as the pitching was for the Raiders, it was not what made the biggest difference on Wednesday.

“Their speed killed us tonight. We gave them three runs,” Nova Manager Pat McQuaid said. “It was a competitive game, and it always is when you play St. Thomas. Give them credit. I hope we get to see them at least two more times.”

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