Patience pays for St. Vincent in NCS victory over Ferndale

St. Vincent patience and defense beat Ferndale in NCS quarterfinal baseball game.|

Patience paid big time for St. Vincent’s Mustangs in their North Coast Section Division 5 quarterfinal game against Ferndale’s visiting Wildcats. The Mustangs scored six runs on just five hits and their defense made the modest offense stand good for as 6-2 victory.

St. Vincent took advantage of six walks, two hit batters and a balk to extend its season-long winning streak to 25 games.

Although he wasn’t overpowering, St. Vincent left-hander Ethan Rapoport mixed his pitches well to subdue the Wildcats on five hits, but walked none in five innings.

Rapoport’s baffling curveball often had Ferndale batters hitting off their front feet, resulting in soft outfield flies or infield pops. Third baseman Trent Free and shortstop Reno Nalducci made sparkling defensive plays on ground balls in support of their pitcher.

Trent free wrapped things up with a scoreless seventh, walking a batter but giving up no hits.

St. Vincent took advantage of Ferndale problems to fashion two rallies that were enough to wrap up win No. 25 and advance them to the semifinals.

In the third, four walks and a run-scoring balk mingled with two hits to produce three runs. The big blow in the rally was a sharply hit two-run single up the spine of the diamond by Matt Pierson.

St. Vincent was back in business in the fourth. Walks again played a major part in another three-run rally that had one hit, a single by Gio Antonini. Two walks and two errors frustrated the Wildcats.

That was that.

Antonini and Raporport each had two hits with Pierson’s clutch single accounting for the only other Mustang safe blow.

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