#3 American Heritage Offense Explodes Vs. #4 West Boca

Anthony Tralongo (9) hit two home runs for the American Heritage Delray Stallions on Monday, a solo shot in the third and a three-run bomb in the seventh.

Two top-four programs in Palm Beach County faced off on Monday night and the No. 3 American Heritage-Delray Stallions moved to 13-4 on the season with an 8-4 win on the road against the No. 4 West Boca Bulls (11-5).

The Stallions took advantage of winds as high as 15 mph in the first few innings to hit three home runs in as many frames and finished with four on the day as a team. Designated hitter Anthony Tomonto led the game off with a homer, right fielder Justin Aron went deep in the second and shortstop Anthony Tralongo did it in the third. All three were to left field and solo shots, keeping the game within range for West Boca.

The Stallions added another run in the first on an Ayden Gurevich ground out that scored Evan Fernandez, who moved from first to third on wild pitches after hitting safely.

West Boca briefly tied the game up in the bottom of the first after scoring a pair of runs on an error and Pier Figueroa’s RBI single. Shortstop Tyler Lichtenberger singled and third baseman Corey Kling doubled to start the rally. That’s all the scoring the Bulls did until the fifth, when Lichtenberger traded a ground out for an RBI.

That’s when Stallions manager Carm Mazza gathered his players and uttered a single directive.

“Don’t let them in,” Mazza said.

Justin Aron (12) is greeted at the plate after hitting a home run in the second inning for American Heritage Delray.

Tralongo answered his coach’s plea emphatically. He walked to start the sixth inning and nearly got picked off at first base, but that didn’t deter him. As soon as Tralongo saw the ball get by the catcher, he took off for the next base. He made it all the way to third and drew an errant throw from West Boca’s backstop. Of course, Tralongo got up from his slide and headed home, giving the Stallions a much-need insurance run.

But he wasn’t done there. Tralongo added three more runs on a no-doubter to left in the seventh, his second home run of the day and season. West Boca ended up plating one run in the ninth, so his second big fly ended up being the difference on the scoreboard.

“A home run always feels kind of surreal to me,” Tralongo said. “It’s the greatest feeling in baseball. On the second one, it’s not so much of a relief as it as a big deep breath. Kind of like, alright, I got my pitch and I didn’t miss it.”

Both Mazza and Tralongo mentioned that the focus had been going to right-center, which is where the junior infielder hits it when he’s seeing it best. He sent a hard-hit ball to that area in his first at-bat and knew he’d be locked in for the rest of the day.

Mazza said that power is something that the team expects from Tralongo, but four home runs as a club is not exactly typical for the Stallions.

Despite earning the loss against American Heritage Delray, West Boca senior left-hander Chris Owens (16) was strong for most of the night and struck out seven through 6 2/3 innings.

“We just came here and swung it well,” Mazza said. “Tomonto got it rolling and the guys after that had some really good swings. We’ve had some hitting success here in the fall and in the spring, so we’ve swung it well here. I joked at the end that maybe we need to start playing some home games at this park.”

Left-hander Noah Lucia was on the mound for Heritage. He hurled six innings and gave up four runs (three earned) while striking out six. Lucia pitched to contact for most of the night, but he found his slider in the sixth and struck out the side, boosting his final numbers.

Mazza went to shake Lucia’s hand after the sixth, but he asked to come back out and finish it. A pair of leadoff singles ended that dream, but Joey Abbazia came in and closed the door despite giving up a run.

“I definitely picked it up later in the game,” Lucia said of his breaking ball. “I was leaving it up a bit, but later in the game, I kind of cut my leg off a bit like coach was telling me to do and then it worked, so I just rolled with it.”

West Boca also went with their starter for six-plus innings. Senior left-hander Chris Owens nearly pitched a complete game but was forced to leave the game after 6 2/3 innings after reaching the FHSAA limit of 105 pitches in an outing. Junior lefty Matt Pagan came in to get the final out of the seventh but surrendered the home run to Tralongo, adding two more runs to Owens’ final line.

While the end result might not be what he wanted, Owens still fanned seven Stallions on the night and gave the team a chance to come back by settling down during his second time through the order.

“It’s just settling in and learning about the hitters,” Owens said. “Knowing what they did before at the plate helps to know how to beat them the second or time around.”

Noah Lucia (22) added a quality start to his resume on Monday with six-plus innings of work for American Heritage Delray.

Owens was really just a few mistake pitches away from a different outcome, and there’s no telling what the final score might have been if the state athletic association allowed seniors to throw 110 pitches in a night. Bulls manager Jerry Albert, who has hit the ground running in his first year with the program, admitted that his team dug too deep of a hole to climb out of on Monday.

“Sometimes, things just don’t come together for you,” Albert said. “We tweak one thing or another and we can keep that game a lot closer and maybe win it. The hits were about the same. There’s just went a little further than ours… Sometimes you just have to give the other team credit.”

Playing tough teams is something both of these clubs do intentionally to prepare for what they hope is a long postseason run. Albert isn’t sounding any alarm bells after a loss to a good club and is hoping that his team can endure a schedule ranked the fourth-hardest among all 6A teams in the state.

For the Stallions, this might be the team’s signature win until a pair of games to close out the year against Benjamin (15-1) and Douglas (15-0) roll around. Winning either of those games would be massive for Heritage Delray heading into the playoffs.

“You know, (this win) is big,” Mazza said. “That’s why we play this kind of schedule. We know that games like this are big and we look at every game as being big. We don’t want to mail in any games. We want to play against tough teams as well as we can, and they’re a good ball club over there. So, it was a nice win.”

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