Sweet Home continues its turnaround
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

Game by game, the Sweet Home baseball team continues to learn from its mistakes.

The Panthers dropped a 14-10 decision to Williamsville East at home on Monday, April 21 but responded with road victories at Iroquois, 14-8, and Williamsville South, 3-1, on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Sweet Home closed out the week with an 8-4 loss to Lake Shore last Friday at home and a 4-3 win over Section III's Baldwinsville on Saturday at Sweet Home.

The Panthers' week started off rough. Sweet Home pitchers walked 10 East batters as the Flames built a 10-2 lead going into the bottom of the fifth inning.

"Pitching sets the tone and the bottom line was we walked six batters in the first three innings," said Sweet Home coach Derek Zgoda. "It's tough for the defense to get in rhythm when pitchers are walking batters."

The Panthers tallied two runs in the first and fifth inning and added five in the seventh on three walks, two East errors, a sacrifice fly and one hit. Cody Stonish, Brian Barnas and Dan Ministero each walked and scored. Aaron Klein hit a hard ball to center field, reached on an error and scored on a sacrifice fly by Dave Wantuck. Alex Frase then reached on an error and scored on a single by Ryan Gutt.

In the first, Casey Kacz walked and scored on a Travis Denman sacrifice fly and Brian Pappagallo walked and scored on a John Graziano single.

In the fifth, Gutt reached on an error, Kacz was hit by a pitch and Barnas cracked a two-RBI single. In the sixth, Wantuck singled and scored on a Gutt RBI single.

East outhit Sweet Home, 12-5. Gutt went 2 for 4 with two RBIs.

The Sweet Home-Iroquois game went back and forth until Sweet Home scored four times in the top of the fifth to break a 5-5 tie, highlighted by a two-RBI triple by Klein. Klein later scored on an Iroquois throwing error.

The Panthers added two more runs in the sixth, courtesy of a Graziano two-RBI double, and another two in the seventh when Philip Stewart and Kacz each scored on an error.

Stewart finished 3 for 4 with two runs scored and four RBIs, including a two-run home run in the fourth that gave Sweet Home a 5-4 lead and a two-RBI single in the second that plated Denman and Graziano. It was Stewart's first varsity career home run.

Other hitting stars for the Panthers were Kacz (two singles), Stonish (single, triple), Denman (two singles), Graziano (single, double) and Klein (double, triple).

"We had a nice practice last Tuesday and the kids came out with more enthusiasm early on," said Zgoda. "It was a good lesson learned from the East game."

Stonish settled down after the first three innings to pick up the win on the mound. Stonish gave up eight hits over six innings, struck out five and walked one.

"To his credit, he pitched out of a lot of jams," said Zgoda.

Six different Panthers recorded a hit and overcame some great pitching by Zach Murray to beat South. Murray threw a six-hitter, allowed three runs, one unearned run, struck out six and walked three. Sweet Home had multiple runners in scoring position several times, including the bases loaded in the sixth but Murray was able to get of jams.

"He gave us a great chance to win," said South coach Dave Delisanti.

Kacz was equally strong, throwing a complete game six-hitter, striking out six and walking one.

"I thought he did a great job changing speeds on his pitches," said Zgoda. "He was getting his breaking ball over for strikes. The defense played strong behind him. It was a total team effort."

Sweet Home scored a run in the first (Pappagallo on Denman RBI double), second (Klein on Craig Young double) and seventh (Stonish on ground ball by Mike Wolcott) innings. The Panthers' run in the seventh was the result of two South fielding errors.

Tom LiSacchi scored South's only run in the sixth on a fielder's choice by Austin White. LiSacchi had two singles. Alex Walkowski also singled. South left five runners in scoring position.

The Sweet Home offense took a detour against Lake Shore as they only managed five hits off of Lake Shore's Eric Radwan.

The Panthers gave up eight runs in the top of the second. Sweet Home scored once in the third, twice in the sixth and another in the seventh.

Gutt hit 2 for 2 with a run scored and two RBIs.

Barnas threw 5.1 scoreless innings of relief pitching to give the Panthers a chance at a comeback.

Graziano walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh to plate Dominik Puntillo for the winning run against Baldwinsville.

Chris Hammer scattered nine hits and allowed two earned runs for the victory on the mound.

"He changed speeds and did a nice job of getting out of jams," said Zgoda.

Sweet Home (4-4, 2-2) hosts Hamburg at 5 p.m. on Wednesday and travel to West Seneca East at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday in a makeup game from Monday.