Park Vista Remains Unbeaten In 5-0 Win Over Seminole Ridge

With three effective pitches all working in his favor on Wednesday night, Cobras starter Emanuel Fernandez was near-unhittable in his six innings of work.

One of the beauties of sports is that even when you have a performance that’s not up to par, a good showing the next time out will erase the bad memories. Park Vista junior Emanuel Fernandez, after a recent outing in which he didn’t make it out of the third inning, exemplified that philosophy with a dominant, six-inning showing against Seminole Ridge in a 5-0 win on Wednesday night.

“I’ve seen Manny sharper, but he was getting ahead in counts, throwing three great pitches — fastball, curveball, changeup — and hitting his spots, and when you have a guy that’s able to throw three effective pitches for strikes and get ahead in the count, it’s going to be more effective against a good hitting team,” Cobras manager Larry Greenstein said of his pitcher. “Manny’s a bulldog, and even on a night without his best stuff, he was still pretty darn effective. I know that Manny wanted to finish the game, but after we scored that fifth run, I said it’s not worth it. I need him strong at the end of the year, not in the middle of the year.”

Fernandez improved to 2-0 on the season.

“I knew from the bullpen session that all of my pitches were working,” Fernandez said. “I had a lot of strikeouts, but I also had a lot of nice plays behind me and I couldn’t really do without them. The hit by pitch was disappointing, but other than that, it felt natural out there. I didn’t change my approach too much from my last outing, but I just tried to stay sharper and I felt better when I hit the mound for the first time.”

Park Vista was given an offensive boost by third baseman Patrick Skibiski, who doubled home first baseman James Marinan and designated hitter Drew Kendall with a second-inning double off Seminole Ridge starter Richie Cotromano. Run number three in that inning came by way of an RBI groundout by right fielder TJ Gerrmani, scoring second baseman Hogan Townsend, who had reached base earlier in the inning with an intended sacrifice bunt that instead went for a hit.

If teams are looking for a true showing of the talent that Greenstein has on his now 8-0 roster, then look no further than the third inning enjoyed by junior shortstop Chase Ashby. After leading off with a walk, Ashby stole both second and third base before coming around to score on a wild pitch — all of which came in just one at-bat, a plate appearance belonging to catcher Joe Kelly. Efficient baserunning is something that Greenstein has been preaching all season long as part of doing the ‘little things’, and as Ashby showed, it’s clear that the time spent working on the basepaths is paying off.

Hawks left fielder Joey Shergan fought hard in all of his at-bats against Fernandez, exactly what Trent Pendergast wants from his leadoff hitter.

“We had one big inning and we hit the ball hard when we had to,” Greenstein said. “We got down three or four good bunts and since they changed the rules with the bats, it’s going back to that kind of game where teams aren’t sitting back and waiting to hit four or five home runs. Bunting is definitely one of the things we’re seeing a lot more now, along with the hit-and-run. It’s high school baseball; you need to put pressure on a team. You’re not going to put pressure on a team by hitting 380-feet flyouts.”

Pitching for Seminole Ridge and opposing Fernandez was Richie Cotromano, who didn’t pitch as bad as the box score may show. While he was lifted after only two-plus innings, Cotromano struck out two and overall seemed in control. Unfortunately, the second inning did him in and led Hawks manager Trent Pendergast to make a switch.

“We told our guys that though this game doesn’t seem like it’d matter in the long run, seeing as it’s not a district or conference game. We’re definitely going to try to learn from this game and put that towards the rest of our season,” Pendergast said after his team’s first loss of the year. “We certainly didn’t perform our best; this was probably the worst game we’ve had in two years. So we’ll go back to the drawing board and start making the corrections. Our guys didn’t have their stuff today, and unfortunately, that happened on a night where Fernandez was absolutely amazing for Port Vista.”

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