HIGHTSTOWN — As the Mercer County American Legion Baseball League enters its home stretch this week, its North Hamilton and Princeton Post 218 squads still find themselves jockeying for postseason position.
With the MCALL figuring to get six bids (at least for now), the Hibernians and Post 218 know they are not exactly where they want to be with four and two games remaining, respectively, on their regular-season schedules.
That’s why Sunday’s makeup at Hightstown High was so important.
North Hamilton did just enough to capture a 7-1 victory over Princeton and extend its winning streak to three games.
The 9-5 Hibernians find themselves in fifth place in the standings, while 5-11 Post 218 drop to seventh or eighth place in the nine-team lead (depending on the outcome of 4-9 Broad Street Park Post 313’s two games with 8-3 Lawrence last night).
“Yes, we’ve been a little up and down this season, but we can play,” North Hamilton’s Shane Sammons said. “I like our odds against any team. We’ve just got to get the job done.”
Sammons has been a very interesting contributor for manager Eric Struble’s club this summer. The 15-year-old outfielder will be a sophomore at the Pennington School in the fall, where he was mostly used as a pitcher in the spring. So the Hamilton resident is using his time with the Hibos to get back to playing the outfield, while gaining more plate appearances.
“I played for the Legion team to get more at-bats along with the time with my travel team, the Diamond Jacks out of Flemington,” said Sammons, who drove in three runs and scored another, while only going 1-for-1. “I try to be aggressive at the plate and hunt fastballs. I don’t want to get behind in the at-bat and let the pitcher be ahead.”
Sammons showed a fine eye at the plate Sunday when he doubled in starting pitcher Brandon Rigas (double) for North Hamilton’s first run in the second inning, hit a sacrifice fly to plate Austin Wright with the third run in the third, then walked in the fourth and seventh for the only two runners Princeton reliever Anders Hedin allowed.
Post 218 starting pitcher Nate Nydick combined with Hedin to limit the Hibos to five hits (two by Rigas). Princeton High grad Nydick, who is headed to Drexel University in the fall after just turning 19 four days ago, had a better day at the plate, where he went 2-for-3 with a double and a run batted in.
“I got ground balls, which is what I wanted to do. We just needed to clean up our play a little,” the Legion ball veteran said. “We just want to win. To do so, we need to prepare batter and execute.”
With six hits on the day, Princeton had chances, yet could not capitalize enough. Nydick doubled to open the bottom of the second and Matt Brophy was hit by a pitch before Adam Schwarz sacrifice-bunted them both into scoring position. But rather than tie the game, Post 218 failed to score with Sammons making a nice catch to end the rally.
When Hedin singled, Casey Daigneault doubled and Nydick singled in the sixth inning, manager Judd Petrone Jr.’s team finally got on the board, but Sammons made another fine charging catch to help Aidan Lipman escape further damage and earn his first win (with four innings in relief of Rigas).
After its two runs in the top of the second (Sammons scored on a ground out by Ethan Miller) and the other in the third, North Hamilton batted around in the fourth with bases-loaded walks by Alex “Danny” Alonzo and Sammons capping their scoring before Hedin relieved Nydick and retired 10 of the 12 batters he faced.
NorthHamilton(9-5) 021 400 0 — 7 5 0
Princeton (5-11) 000 001 0 — 1 6 2
2B: Rigas, Sammons (NH), Nydick, Daigneault (P); RBIs: Mitchell, Rigas, Sammons 3, Miller (NH), Nydick (P).
WP — Lipman (1-0); LP — Nydick (0-2).
MCALL STANDINGS
Team W L GB
Allentown 11 2 —
Bordentown 26 9 4 2.0
Lawrence 414 8 3 2.0
Hightstown 148 8 4 2.5
North Hamilton 9 5 2.5
Hamilton 31 6 7 5.0
Broad St. Park 313 4 9 7.0
Princeton 218 5 11 7.5
Trenton 93/182 0 15 12.0