East River Takes A 5-3 Victory Over Oak Ridge

Jumping on Oak Ridge early, East River beat the Pioneers 5-3 for a non-district home victory on Friday night. Oak Ridge battled back and nearly tied the game in the top of the fourth, but East River shut the Pioneers down and held them for the rest of the way.

Manager Rob Hammond was pleased with the win after suffering four losses in a row, following a 2-0 start.

“We’ve been really struggling defensively, and we made some plays tonight,” Hammond said. “The pitchers have been doing a nice job. We didn’t walk a lot of guys and that’s what we have to do.”

Pioneers freshman pitcher Felipe Gomez gave up a few runs in the first couple innings but came back in the third with a new mindset to shut down the Falcons’ offense. Falcons leadoff hitter Eric Gershman started off the first inning with a ground ball to the right side, beating the first baseman to the bag. Gershman scored on a hard ground ball in the 5-6 hole hit by pitcher Liam Silvagoni.

Silvagnoli had five strikeouts and went 3-for-3 offensively for East River (3-4). The senior and Seminole State commit talked about his performance afterwards.

“I did pretty well. I had a little issue with my command but my team picked me up,” Silvagnoli said. “My go-to pitch tonight was my two-seam fast ball.”

Silvagnoli pitched the first four innings for the Falcons and held the Pioneers (2-5) scoreless until the top of the fourth. Jordan Rivera scored on a deep fly ball to center hit by shortstop Armani Mendoza. Gaining momentum and being aggressive, the Pioneers scored two more runs on a first-and-third situation by taking home on the throw down to second, and then also stole home on a wild pitch.

Relieving Silvagnoli in the fourth inning with two outs, junior Zach Grissom came in and got an easy ground ball to third to end the Pioneers’ rally attempt.

“I came out in a rough situation and pitched a few innings and didn’t let them score any runs,” Grissom said. “I need to work on my off-speed pitches more, they didn’t work very well tonight. I hope we can win more games. I would like to go to the district tournament; I’ve never been to one. This is my first time on the varsity team so hopefully we can do that.”

East River scored one more run in the fifth to secure the win.

“I liked that we put ourself in position to win the game,” Pioneers first-year manager Mike McDaniel said. “We had chances, we just didn’t get it done when the time mattered. One of the things we talk about everyday is making routine plays, and that’s what hurt us today. We botched a routine pop up and they ended up scoring a couple runs and that was the difference in the game.”

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