Panthers' ace outduels Ziomek in Amherst
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AMHERST - Neither senior ace was dominant, but the Amherst Regional and Cathedral baseball teams treated the several hundred fans who descended on Ziomek Field to a terrific game Friday night.
Panther pitcher Matt O'Herron outdueled Hurricane Kevin Ziomek in Cathedral's 5-3 win.
The loss was the first of the season for Ziomek, who fell to 6-1. He allowed four hits, five walks and four earned runs, while striking out 14 for Amherst (13-7, 4-4 Valley League).
O'Herron, who signed to play at St. John's next year, gave up five hits, two walks and struck out three for the Panthers (18-2, 8-1).
"Cathedral is one of the best teams around. They have a real good hitting squad and they took it to us today," Ziomek said. "We competed, but we just couldn't get it done."
Amherst coach Greg Vouros was disappointed with the result, but not his team's effort.
"There were a lot of breaks that could have gone either way in this game," Vouros said. "I thought we gave a good effort. It's hard to have a good loss.
"But when you play a good team and play pretty well and battle all night long we can take that away from it," he added. "It was a competitive game with a playoff atmosphere."
The atmosphere at Ziomek Field matched the game on the field. While the number of scouts in attendance to see Ziomek was well down from previous games, there were plenty of fans to fill in the gaps. There were many former Amherst Regional and Little League players in attendance to see the new scoreboard dedicated to Stan Ziomek, Kevin's grandfather.
And most in the crowd wanted to see two of the best teams and pitchers in Western Massachusetts square off in what could be a preview of a postseason matchup.
Many Cathedral fans made the trip from Springfield and made their presence known with a steady stream of chants from the hill behind home plate.
"It was a great atmosphere and a great opportunity to play in front of a crowd like that," Vouros said. "You don't always get that in high school baseball. To win and to be there at the end, that's what you have to play in front of."
Ziomek was dominant at the start, striking out the side in the first without allowing even a foul ball.
O'Herron walked leadoff hitter Steffen Herter and gave up a hit-and-run single to Chuck Hebb to give the Hurricanes their first two runners on base. But after a sacrifice bunt moved both runners up, O'Herron struck out Sean Cunningham and induced a fly out from Dean Bonneau to escape unscathed.
Uncharacteristic wildness hurt Ziomek in the second. He gave up a leadoff double to deep left-center field to Robert DeCosmo, who moved to third on a sacrifice bunt. Ziomek then issued three straight walks, and the last forced in the game's first run. After striking out Dante Christofori, Ziomek's slider to Zach Bombard caught too much of the plate and the Panther center fielder stroked a two-run single to put Cathedral up 3-0.
"One bad inning against a team like this kind of kills you," Ziomek said. "I missed a few pitches. I was missing up a little bit. I just couldn't locate a couple sliders. I made some mechanical adjustments later in the game."
Vouros said he was pleased with Ziomek's recovery.
"I don't think he lost the focus for very long," Vouros said. "He went deep into the game and he was still at the top of his game at the end."
The lefty who has signed to attend Vanderbilt settled down, retiring nine straight batters.
Amherst, who had not had a base-runner since the first inning, broke through in the fifth with two outs. After Jack McCutcheon walked and Zak Tanne was hit by a pitch, Herter beat out a high chopper to short to load the bases.
Chuck Hebb fell behind 0-2, but battled back and drilled an RBI-single up the middle to make it 3-2. Bobby Carkhuff followed with an RBI-single to left that tied the game.
Amherst nearly escaped O'Herron's leadoff triple in the sixth. Ziomek struck out DeCosmo and Mike Musante charged in to grab Frank Vatrano's safety squeeze bunt and looked O'Herron back before getting the out at first.
But after Dylan Griswold walked and stole second, Brendan Geary hit a bloop single to left-center that fell in front of Jack Hebb. O'Herron scored easily, but Hebb's perfect throw cut down Griswold at home to keep Cathedral's lead at 4-3.
After Amherst left McCutcheon on second in the sixth, the Panthers got an unearned insurance run in the seventh.
O'Herron set the Hurricanes down in order in the seventh to likely wrap up the No. 1 seed when the Western Massachusetts Division I Tournament seeds are announced on Tuesday. Amherst figures to have a high seed as well, and Ziomek said he hopes for a rematch with Cathedral.
"We'd love to. We'd like to see them in a night game under the lights at their place," said Ziomek as horns beeped from the vehicles of Cathedral fans leaving the parking lot. "I think we'd be ready to go. Good for them. They got the win, but we're going to come back and take it to them pretty soon."
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.
