Perfect 10! Point Merchants Improve to 10-0 After Defeating Lacey Dodgers 3-2

The Point Merchants won their tenth consecutive contest in the Jersey Shore Baseball League by the skin of their teeth in defeating the Lacey Dodgers 3-2 at Point Borough High School on Tuesday evening.

On what was a picture perfect night for baseball, nothing came easy for the Point Merchant hurlers.

Merchants starting pitcher Rich Gabriel and reliever Matt Yuhas were consistently able to work themselves into and out of trouble against the Dodgers' offensive attack.

Gabriel and Yuhas held Lacey to only two runs and stranded 11 Dodgers' runners on base.

However, on a night where the home plate umpire’s strike zone was very tight, both hurlers combined to walk 10 batters in seven innings of work.

Both hurlers were able to escape jams, thanks to the strikeout. Gabriel and Yuhas struck out 11 Lacey batters.

“These guys come to play, and pitch for me every night,” said Merchants head coach Art Rooney. “Our guys battled throughout the entire game, although they had to work with a tight strike zone. I give our guys a ton of credit for battling through and getting big outs when we needed them.”

Yuhas worked himself into difficult jams in both the sixth and seventh innings.

The Brookdale Community College standout loaded the bases in the sixth with two outs.

Yuhas worked the count full to Lacey’s Kenny Craddox, and then proceeded to strike the left-handed, swinging Craddox out on a high fastball.

In the seventh, Yuhas put runners on the corners with one out, but induced Tim Petrin to ground out to third base, which kept the tying run at third base.

With two outs, Yuhas was able to harness his stuff and struck out Greg Geran on three straight pitches to end the game.

“I didn’t have my great stuff today,” said Yuhas. “I just had to take a deep breath, compose myself and find a way to get the job done. Thankfully when I needed to work out of jams, I did.”  

The Merchants scored a run in the third, fourth and fifth innings respectively against Lacey starter Zach Emmett.

Trailing by one, in the bottom half of the fourth, Merchants’ catcher Elliot Hagburg ripped a one-out double into right center field and came around to score on a single by Tyler Kapp, which tied the game at two.

In the fifth, the Merchants were the beneficiary of a base-on ball and unlike the Lacey offensive attack, were able to take advantage of the free pass.

With one out, Brandon Adams walked, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored what turned out to be the winning run on a Jason Cramer single to center field.

“We’ve had some trouble with their pitchers over the last few years,” said Rooney. “I was real happy tonight, that we were able to find another way to win a ball game.”

With the win, the Merchants improve their record to 10-0 on the year, and will face the Howell Spartans on Thursday night, as a warm-up for Sunday’s critical doubleheader against the Toms River Tigers.

“We have some tough games coming up, but I like the way that we’re playing baseball right now,” said Rooney. “If we keep playing like this, we are going to be very tough to beat.”