Rolling through Riverhead’s varsity baseball field, a ground ball can turn from routine to nearly impossible.
Wednesday was opening day for the Blue Waves and John Wendt was on the hill. After nursing several injuries that have set him back somewhat in his baseball career, he’s back and healthy.
Wendt pitched as if he hadn’t skipped a beat, keeping East Islip scoreless through six innings, surrendering only one hit to that point. He produced mostly ground balls and even fielded seven of them himself for putouts. Then came the dreaded routine ground ball to shortstop.
“Wendt threw outstanding today,” Riverhead head coach Rob Maccone said. “Not more you can ask of him. He kept us in it until the end and gave us a good chance to win.”
“I’ve only got to throw outside once before because of the weather and that was in a scrimmage,” Wendt said. “I thought I did pretty good out there. Only one of my pitches was really working at the start but by the middle I was getting everything to work. I was just throwing to contact.”
After getting the first two hitters in the seventh inning, a hard ground ball was hit right at shortstop Kenny Simco. He sat back and waited for the the ball to come to him but suddenly it hit the old fashioned Riverhead divot in the middle of the field and redirected.
Three hits followed and Redmen (1-0 League IV) scored three unearned runs to win the game 3-0.
Riverhead (0-1 League IV) had no answer. Cody Dilworth reached base on a ground ball that must’ve hit the same divot and ate up the East Islip shortstop.
The Blue Waves could only muster two hits against East Islip ace Mike Demarest, who has committed to pitch for Adelphi University next year. He had 10 strikeouts in the complete game effort.
“He’s the real deal,” Maccone said of Demarest. “He dominated but we still had chances.”
The Blue Waves had a runner on second with one out in the first inning and then runners on second and third with one out in the sixth.
“We’ve got to come up big in those situations,” Maccone said. “Especially in those games that one run could be enough.”
Riverhead will host game two on April 6 at 4pm.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Courtney Blasl
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