South Side Loses to Garden City, 4-2

Garden City's potent offense was held to only nine hits and four runs against South Side at Barasch Field on Monday afternoon, but it was their aggressiveness on the base path that helped them top the Cyclones 4-2.

South Side catcher Matt Sollin tried stopping Garden City's Dan Muller from stealing third in the fifth inning, but his throw sailed high and Muller scored, breaking a 1-1 tie. Garden City stole six bases in the game and Muller had two of his own, producing two runs for the Trojans. 

"We got some better speed this year," said Garden City head coach Rich Smith. "We got the Muller kid in the nine spot, but he's a leadoff guy. He got a good jump stealing third and they overthrew third. He accounted for two runs and we won by two."

The loss overshadowed South Side's most complete game of the season. Though they only scored two runs, they had seven hits, played close to perfect defense in the field and received a great pitching performance from left-hander Christian Colletti. The Holy Trinity transfer tossed 84 pitches over five innings, tallying five strikeouts, one walk while giving up two earned runs. Head Coach Keith Lessuk said he liked what he saw from Colletti.

"He was excellent," Lessuk said. "He did a real nice job of making pitches early and getting ahead a lot of batters. He had a lot more command on the mound and I'm happy with that."

South Side scored first in the bottom of the second after right fielder James Howard reached base on an error. Third baseman Louis Matarazzo sacrificed Howard to second, and in his first start of the season, Dylan Leary ripped a double down the right field line to give the Cyclones a 1-0 lead.

Garden City tied the scored in the top of the third on a RBI single by James Cauchi, who finished 2-for-3 with an RBI. In the fifth, Muller and Frank Cordio led off the inning with back-to-back singles. Muller stole third and Sollin's attempt to catch the speedy outfielder went into left field, allowing him to score. Garden City scored again on an RBI fielder's choice by cleanup hitter Scott Conetta to take a 3-1 lead.

The Cyclones responded in the bottom half of the inning with an RBI single by Andrew Talbot that scored Thomas Kane to bring South Side within one, but Talbot was thrown out trying to advance to second, quelling the rally.

"I thought we played very well, the type of baseball we're aspiring to keep playing," Lessuk said. "We cut down on the mental mistakes. If we can play like that for 16 more games, I'll take it."

Garden City added a run in the top of the sixth, but South Side didn't have another rally left in them. The Cyclones got one hit in the final two innings. The Trojans starting pitcher, James Duff, threw an 85-pitch complete game with eight strikeouts. He mixed in off speed stuff with his fastball, keeping the Cyclones batters guessing. 

"He was really throwing his changeup effectively," Smith said. "What I liked about his performance was that he was throwing as hard in the sixth and seventh inning as he was in the beginning of the game. We know this is a good team and you have to get a good pitching performance to give us a chance to win, and Jimmy did."

South Side gets a rematch with Garden City today at 4:30 p.m. at Garden City High School.

BOX SCORE

WP: James Duff (Garden City)

LP: Christian Colletti