By: Sean Moylan
As loaded with talent as the Northern Burlington County Regional High varsity baseball team Is, it may have found another stud pitcher in Zack Koss.
Koss allowed just one hit and fanned six batters in five scoreless innings to beat Kingsway, 13-3, last Thursday at Northern Burlington.
"I’m really happy with his performance," said NBC head baseball coach Rick Doppler, who was especially pleased that Koss did not walk a batter in the game.
Doppler would have let Koss close out the contest in the sixth (NBC 10-runned) but his pitch count was getting a bit high so he took him out to protect Koss’ valuable arm. Jon Lathers and Russ Stupienski combined to pitch the final frame for the victors.
Northern’s Andy Hoyer has a way of taking over games with his bat and this was one of those games. Hoyer blasted a two-run homer, smashed a double and collected five RBI in the contest. Rob Vansciver tripled and drove in a pair of runs while Dustin Ghaul had a two-base hit and knocked in two runs.
NBC was playing so well at the time, it was starting to look nearly invincible. But baseball is a very humbling sport. And the Greyhounds inability to tack on more early runs led to a 7-3 road loss to Shawnee this past Saturday.
"We had Shawnee on the ropes and we blew it," remarked Doppler, whose team led 3-0 going into the bottom of the second frame. "They only struck us out once. But they played great defense. And they hit the ball in last two innings."
Shawnee scored four runs in the final two frames to stop NBC’s modest winning streak at three. But in the early going the Greyhounds were doing nearly everything right.
In the first, Ghaul singled and moved to second on Vansciver’s sacrifice bunt. Then Matt Vereb and Keith Miccio each followed with run-scoring singles. Hoyer cracked a RBI double in the second, but then NBC’s offense simply shut down the rest of the way.
Dan Agos started for Northern Burlington, but Abhi Chandel took a hard-luck loss in relief.
"They had four unearned runs against us," said Doppler whose great hitters seemed to struggle in the frigid conditions.
The game, however, was probably just an aberration, as not many pitchers are going to hold down Northern’s lineup this season the way that John Hydock did on Saturday. In fact, Hoyer and Stupienski are hitting the tar out of the ball nearly every time up.
NBC was scheduled at Pemberton yesterday (Wednesday). It is scheduled to host Lenape today (Thursday). NBC will play in the Sterling Tournament on Saturday and it is scheduled at Willingboro next Tuesday.
FLORENCE
So far this season the only club that’s been able to stop the Florence Township Memorial High boys’ varsity baseball team has been Florence itself.
Because when the Flashes have played decent defense, they’ve won.
In this past Tuesday’s second game of the Hawaiian Tropic Classic Baseball Tournament, Florence clubbed 14 hits in 30 at bats and pounded Elmira Free Academy 14-4 in five innings. The Flashes also played flawless defense in the contest.
Anthony Krause had started the spring on Florence’s track team so there was always the danger of him being a bit rusty in his first few outings. Elmira had no such luck as Krause threw effortlessly and struck out six batters to pick up an easy win.
"He was awesome," added Florence head coach Ryan Pandolfini of Krause’s pitching.
Nine Florence batters collected knocks. Stu Foulks continued his torrid hitting with a 3-for-4 three RBI day at the dish. Jeff Perro (2-for-4, two RBI), Jimmy Martinson (2-for-4, two RBI) and Robert Hutchison (2-for-3, two RBI) also crushed the ball on Tuesday.
Hitting was not Florence’s problem in a 14-7 loss to Horseheads in Monday’s opener of the tourney fielding was. Florence made nine errors and the defense was so sloppy that only three of the 10 runs Stevie Giambrone allowed in four innings were earned. It wasn’t a total waste however as Ian Groover (two innings, three earned runs allowed) and Cory Haluska both got in some work on the hill in relief of Giambrone.
Giambrone (three RBI) and Chucky Taylor (RBI) each went 3for-4 while Martinson was 2-for-3 with a double. Nick Nucerra had a RBI and Foulks hit the ball well too.
Before embarking on their trip, the Flashes found the time to win a 4-2 decision at Burlington City this past Saturday. Nick Schmidt, who had Tommy John surgery last year, pitched well and earned the win with five solid innings (two runs allowed). But Chris Foehr was equally dominating with two scoreless innings of relief.
"He looked really good. He struck out six out of the seven batters he faced," said Pandolfini of Foehr, who also contributed an RBI single in the fourth and an RBI sacrifice fly in the sixth.
Schmidt also knocked in a run himself. But Florence’s best hitter on the bitterly cold day may have been Taylor, who was 2-for-2 with a run-scoring sac fly. Giambrone stayed warm by going 1-for-3 with three stolen bases.
Giambrone was also on fire with the bat in Florence’s 15-5 five-inning triumph over Burlington Township at Florence last Thursday. Giambrone was a perfect 4-for-4 as he smacked a pair of doubles and drove in five runs to ignite the Flashes’ attack. Foulks also had a pair of hits and knocked in two runs while Perro, Foehr and Schmidt each had an RBI too. Krause, pitching for the first time this season, struck out four in three frames to pick up the "W."
Florence (4-1) was scheduled to have played a team from West Virginia yesterday (Wednesday) in the Hawaiian Tropic Classic. The rest of its schedule for the tournament will depend on Wednesday’s results. Florence is scheduled to host Trenton Catholic next Tuesday.

