Allentown’s 10th-inning rally stuns Nottingham
ALLENTOWN >> There has been something special about each meeting between the Allentown High and Nottingham High baseball teams this spring.
Each has been a onerun affair, and each has gone longer than the last.
The teams are that comparable, and both lay it all out on the line.
So when they met for a third time this season in the second round of the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III Tournament Friday, the Redbirds and Northstars did not disappoint once again — this time needing three hours and 12 minutes, plus 10 innings, for fourth-seeded Allentown to rally past fifth-seeded Nottingham, 7-6, at Daniel M. Venet Field.
The resilience that the Redbirds, who advance to play top-seeded Toms River South (22-3) on the road Tuesday, showed to prevail was like a movie script.
Twice the Northstars (21-8) put the home team in a two-run hole, and twice A’town (22-2) responded, including in the bottom of the 10th inning.
Jackson Fogarty’s twoout, bases-loaded single to right field was the gamewinner, plating Austin Ferrier to cap a three-run rally after Nottingham had taken a 6-4 lead in the top half of the frame.
“Meow! That was exciting!” said Fogarty, a senior shortstop whose miscue in the top of the 10th helped the visitors take a two-run edge. “We love going extra innings. I don’t know what it is about extras, but, once we get there, we feel like we are going to pull it out.”
That late surge marked the second time in the game head coach Brian Nice’s team had to rally past head coach Jim Maher’s squad.
Nottingham jumped on Allentown starting pitcher Colton Johnson for a pair of runs in the top of the first as an error, a double by Nick Houghton and a two-run double by Bryce Fremgen gave it the early, 2-0 lead.
But the Redbirds responded with a fourspot against Houghton in the bottom of the first, with the big blow being a three-run double by Guisseppe Arcuri.
Arcuri had a similar chance in the 10th, but reliever Fremgen got him out on strikes.
“They’re a good team and so are we, but we have bad luck against them sometimes,” Fremgen said. “We had them down twice, and we couldn’t finish them either time.”
The Northstars did manage to even the score at 4 in the top of the second inning when Fremgen doubled in another run after a two-out error gave them new life. From there, however, reliever Jimmy Frein kept Nottingham off the scoreboard for the next seven innings.
“Every time we play them, the game is a lot of fun,” said Frein, who made his longest relief stint of the season, going 7 1/3 innings.
Nottingham did not get to him until Tommy McParland singled with one out in the 10th and advanced when a ball got away, then scored on Brien Cardona’s single.
Before that, the visitors could not get past catcher Chris Reeder, who threw out one runner trying to steal and tagged out another trying to score on a failed suicide squeeze bunt in the ninth inning.
“We were a little shaky at first in the 10th, but then we just did what we had to do,” Frein said.
With the top of the order stepping to the plate in Fremgen’s third inning of relief of Houghton, who finished strong with six shutout innings, Aydon Chavis singled, Matt Coiante walked and Austin NOTTINGHAM
abr h bi McPrlnd ss 3 1 1 0 Cardona 2b 4 3 1 1 Hghtn p-rf 6 2 1 0 Frmgn 1bp 4 0 3 3 Scott cf 5 0 2 0 Argiriou c 5 0 1 0 Rojek cr 0 0 0 0 Fuentes dh 2 0 0 0 Benntt lf-rf 0 0 0 0 Baker 1b 0000 Fanning rf 2000 Sikorski lf 2020 Barber 3b 4010 Totals 37 6 12 4 Two outs when winning run scored. E — Argiriou, Sikorski, CJohnson, Arcuri, Fogarty, Frein; LOB — Nottingham 14, Allentown 8; 2B — Houghton, Fremgen 2, Arcuri; SAC — Barber, Fuentes; SB — Scott; CS — Rojek 2.
IP HR ER BB SO
NOTTINGHAM Houghton Fremgen L,1-2 ALLENTOWN CJohnson 2.2 5 4254 Frein W,3-1 7.1 7 2 1 4 4 HbP- by Houghton (Huth), by Fremgen (Reeder), by CJohnson 2 (Fuentes 2), by Frein (Scott); WP — Frein; PB — Argiriou, Reeder. Ferrier beat out a bunt single to load the bases with no outs.
Fremgen got Ryan Huth to pop out, but Frank DelGuercio singled in Chavis. Then Reeder was hit with a pitch to force in the tying run before Fogarty came threw with his first hit of the day to end it.
7.0 2.2 ALLENTOWN
abr h bi Chavis 2b 4110 Coiante dh 4 2 1 0 Ferrier rf 5120 Huth 1b 4100 Tnnnbm pr 0 0 0 0 DelGrcio lf 5 1 1 1 Reeder c 3101 Arcuri 3b 5013 Fogarty ss 5 0 1 1 Baber cf 3010 Gaul ph 0000
Totals
3 5
4 3
38 7 8 6
3 3
3 1
7 3