Green Hope beat South Johnston in their 4th scrimmage of the year on a cold and windy day at South Johnston. Glad I couldn't make it !!! The game went 5 innings with Green Hope on top 5-3 and splitting their preseason games 2 wins to 2 losses.

Once again starting catcher Anthony Colantino couldn't play which forced Joe Pistacchio to step into the catcher's role. Certainly having a star pitcher in the catcher's role is not an idea situation for Green Hope.

The highlight of the game for Green Hope was senior Wesley Clark's first home run of his high school baseball career. Another big hit for the Falcon's was Grant Shambley's double off the wall.

Shambley turns the game ending double play

Adam Boghosian, Max Povse, Daniel Sondag, and Joe Pistacchio all got time on the mound during the scrimmage. Today it was Povse and Sondag having the best outings for the Falcons.

Two big conference games coming up next week for Green Hope. Certainly Green Hope is not where it would like to be with Colantino's questionable status and the trickle down adjustments which that causes, plus an untested infield alignment. Still this is a team loaded with talent which will have to make some early season adjustments, and play hard, until their lineup gets stable later in the season.

The first day of scrimmages took place at Pine Forest High School under sunny skies and the temperature in the 50's. Green Hope was one of four (4A) high schools to participate - host Pine Forest, New Bern, and #2 ranked Pinecrest being the others. All 4 teams have good teams this year and all expect to contend for their respective conference titles. Pinecrest seeemed well deserving of their pre-season ranking.

Green Hope awoke to the news that their starting catcher, Anthony Colantino, was sick and did not make the trip to Pine Forest. This caused all kinds of problems for Green Hope, as several players were rotated in to catch, and the inexperience behind the plate showed as in 12 innings on defense Green Hope gave up 11 stolen bases, several past balls, and very few bad pitches were blocked which resulted in alot of wild pitches.

In the first game against Pine Forest, Max Povse started for Green Hope, but coming off his basketball season with very little baseball practice, Max was a liitle wild on the mound - hitting 3 batters and also threw a few wild pitches in 2 innings of work. Pine Forest scored the first run of the game via a hit batter, stolen base, wild pitch, hit by pitch, runner from first stealing 2nd, and runner from 3rd scoring on the steal throw down to 2nd.

Meanwhile Pine Forest's pitcher, Juan Gloria, held Green Hope hitless, striking out 7 in 3 innings of work. Jonathan Grudee pitched the 3rd and 4th innings and held Pine Forest scoreless thanks to two good defensive plays by Tyler Jones - a running backwards catch while playing in left field and a diving grab of a grounder while playing at third.

Boghosian pitching Green Hope had base runners vs New Bern

In the 4th, Green Hope scored 3 runs off Pine Forest's new pitcher, and won the game 3-1 although because of the time limit, Pine Forest never batted in the 5th. Joe Pistacchio got the first hit of the game, a solid double to left center, followed by Adam Boghosian's double past 1B down the right field line to score Joe. Tyler Jones was hit by a pitch, Boghosian scored the second run on a bad throw to 3rd, and Wesley Clark got a bloop single to score the third run.

The game against New Bern saw two college signees - Green Hope's Boghosian (UNC-G) and New Bern's Grey Davis (Wingate) - in a pitching duel. Boghosian dominated early - striking out the first 8 batters before an 0-2 pitch was weakly grounded to second for the third out. Green Hope was able to get several base runners against Davis, but couldn't get the clutch hit to bring home a run.

Altough Boghosian was nearing his pitch count, he came out in the fourth, got the first out, but walked the next batter, and gave up a double by Steven Hawkins which scored a run. Daniel Sondag came in to pitch and was able to get out of the inning without giving up a run. He also pitched a shutout 5th inning and looked very good with his off speed pitches complimenting his fastball nicely.

Freshman Scott McCraney pitched in the 5th - McCraney pitched well, with good velocity and did not give up a hit. But New Bern scored a run via a walk, 2 stolen bases, and a ground out which scored a run.

The final score was New Bern 2-0 over Green Hope, although both teams had only 2 hits, and Green Hope had 6 base runners to New Bern's 4.

Shambley leads off with a triple Pinecrest's Dillon Maples

In the third game for Green Hope, #2 ranked Pinecrest just wore down Green Hope, winning 10-1 in just 3 innings of play - in fact Pinecrest was still batting in the third and just stopped their at bat (because of the game time limit) - to give Green Hope another chance to bat. A very nice gesture by Pinecrest.

Joe Pistacchio started for Green Hope, actually pitched well but was just missing his spots low by 6 inches. Unfortunately, the game started with an terrible safe call on a routine ground out by Pinecrest's lead off man. That was followed by a sacrifice bunt, walk, double steal, and a strike out which got past the catcher resulting in the batter safe at first and the runner scoring from third. A hit batter followed by a bad hop grounder to second had Pinecrest up 2-0.

Grant Shambley led off the bottom of the first with a triple and was driven in by Joe Pistacchio's long fly ball to center.

The rest of the game saw a combination of Pinecrest hits, walks, and stolen bases, mixed in with Green Hope wild pitches and past balls.

Pinecrest let Green Hope bat against highly regarded and UNC-CH recruit Dillon Maples, who was throwing 91 on a radar gun setup behind the plate. Even the umpires were taking turns to call the pitches when Maples was pitching.

Coach Miragliuolo noted that missing Colantino "really hurt us today", and also mentioned that these were the only scrimmage games that Green Hope has ever lost, "but maybe that's not a bad thing".