By Justin Feil, The Packet Group
Matt Mosko can identify with the pitchers on his Hillsborough Senior American Legion baseball team.
The Hillsborough manager knows how uplifting a little offense can be when you are on the mound.
”I pitched in college,” Mosko said. “I know what it’s like to get some run support.”
Hillsborough finally broke out its bats in a 9-1 win over Skillman on June 24 that snapped its six-game losing streak. Hillsborough may have scored even more, but the game had to be shortened to six innings because of lightning in the area. The losing streak had two things consistently — good pitching and a lack of offense.
”We had 22 runs going into (June 24) and scored nine tonight,” Mosko said. “We almost halved our run output in one game.
”We have been in every game. It’s been a break here and there. They say that pitching and defense wins championships, but that hasn’t been the case for us so far.”
Hillsborough opened the Pyramid Baseball League with a 5-3 win over Somerville, then actually scored seven runs their next game, though it came in an 11-7 loss to Skillman that started their skid. Since then, the offense hasn’t been efficient.
”One or two times, we had an error that led to a bunch of runs when we were an out away from ending an inning,” Mosko said. “Our team ERA is probably somewhere in the 3.50 range, which is incredible. The hitting has been lacking. Tonight, we started hitting the ball.
”We play Tuesday, Wednesday, and two on Saturday. Hopefully we can get in a little groove.”
Hillsborough again consists of mostly players who will be moving up from the Hillsborough High School junior varsity next spring. They enjoyed a solid season of JV and are helping to form the core of a Legion squad that is hoping its bats will come around to meets its pitching.
Players this summer are: Matt Apostolopoulos, Mike DiAlfonso, Grant Dickinson, Dylan Finer, Ryan Kellerman, John Lorenz, Mike Ricca, Ryan Roberts, Garrett Ruoff, Brian Schmidt, Kyle Sluka, Matt Yeager, Kyle Zackeru, Andrew Zitel, Alex Bronfeld, Kyle Kaminsky and Chris Pudimott.
”Most teams are older than us,” Mosko said. “It’s good experience. It’s mostly the JV team from last year. They did pretty well, but they’re playing some more advanced players now so it’s a little tougher level. The pitchers are a little faster, and the hitters are a little tougher. It’s a good learning experience.”
Hillsborough has plenty of challenges ahead. Inclement weather has already crunched the schedule down to eliminate some off days. Mosko is hopeful that the frequency of games helps his team turn things around in a hurry.
”We’re in last place right now, and Saturday we lost to the team just ahead of us who we’re a lot better than,” he said. “I told them to forget Saturday and look ahead to this week. Tuesday and Wednesday, we play Hackettstown who is struggling and Saturday, who is Ridge who is 2-6. If we get on a little roll, we can get back to .500 by the end of the weekend.”
To do so, they will need more performances like theirs against Skillman. DiAlfonso pitched all six innings and kept the opposing bats in check.
”DiAlfonso threw the whole game,” Mosko said. “I left him out there the whole game because we have a bunch of games coming up, and it wasn’t worth using a guy for one inning. He threw a great game. He was able to keep guys off balance. He threw 106 pitches, but he was throwing as hard in the sixth as he was in the first.”
In the meantime, he had plenty of run support as Hillsborough was productive almost every inning.
”It was our most consistent game 1-10 batting,” said Mosko, who can bat 10 players in the Pyramid League. “The first couple games, I didn’t know the guys too well so we were seeing and testing it. We’re starting to get a feel for the way they play. I told them we want them to attack the fastballs early in the count and not get behind where you’re going to see curve balls and offspeed stuff.”
Hillsborough does have some consistently bright spots in its lineup through the first couple of weeks of the season.
”Andrew Zitel, he’s our team leader,” Mosco said. “He’s most likely the captain for next year’s varsity. He plays second base and shortstop and goes back and forth. And also Dylan Finer, we’ve been using him as an extra hitter. The past maybe five games, he’s been hitting the ball really well too.”
Hillsborough isn’t ever going to be a big hitting team this summer, but Mosko sees the ability to score more than they have been averaging if they can work at the small ball approach.
”We’ve been bunting a lot,” Mosko said. “We’ve been drawing some bad luck. We’ll have the first two guys get out and the next guy gets on and you can’t bunt with two outs and we don’t get the hit to knock them in.
”Today, we were fortunate to get some guys on early and able to drive them in and get them over. Small ball is something we’re going to start taking advantage of. We have some quick ballplayers and we want to run with it.”
If Hillsborough can generate some more offense, it will take some pressure off a pitching staff that has had to be almost perfect. They have responded well led by the trio of DiAlfonso, Kaminsky and Finer.
”Pitching has been great so far,” Mosko said. “And they’re all fairly young. Most of them are going to be juniors. Four of our main pitchers are going to be juniors and only one is going to be a senior.
”It’s not just one or two guys carrying the load. Everyone has seen two or three starts and has done pretty well for the most part.”
There is no break in the Pyramid league. Top to bottom, there are challenging teams for Hillsborough, as they have seen in the early portion of the season.
”The first seven games, we played Flemington twice and North Warren once, and they’re the top two teams in our league,” Mosko said. “We played them very competitively. I was happy about that, even though we did lose. But after losing, 2-1, to Somerville, it brought us to square one. Hopefully tonight’s win will propel us in the right direction.”
