By Maurice Lusby
CCC Journalism Program
BLACKWOOD – Camden County College lost the series to the second-ranked team in the country, Northampton Community College, on April 10 at Logan Field. The final score was 19-5. The Cougars lost all three games to the Spartans. Northampton had taken games one and two of the Region 19 series on April 9 in Bethlehem.
The Cougars started well by scoring three runs in the first inning, with Christian Caminotti, Tyler Napoli and Daniel Obermeier crossing the plate. Alec Justis scored a run in the second inning but after that the Cougars struggled to score and Northampton started to get it going.
Nate Eife was the starting pitcher for the Cougars. This was his first start as a pitcher this season. He pitched two innings, gave up five runs and four hits and got four strikeouts. Northampton pitcher Logan Magdits pitched four innings, allowing five hits and striking out six.
It was a rough game for the Cougars pitching staff. They walked 19 Spartans in the game.
The Cougars struggled to keep up the score with Northampton. The Cougars scored no runs in the first game, three in the second game and five in the final game.
After the game, Cougars catcher Alec Justis talked about the series. “We got to do better. I think we could have taken a game. We didn’t do great the first game, last two games we came alive with the bats,” he said.
About the batting in the series, he said, “I mean we put a lot of balls in play. Some didn’t fall. That’s just baseball.”
Going into the seventh inning the Cougars, were still in play to win the game, trailing 9-4, but then it was over. Northampton scored 10 runs in the seventh, most of them coming off walks.
Some fans indicated they thought the umpire was too tight in the strike zone. Justis said about the pitching in the game, “We have to throw more strikes. We walk a lot of guys and gave up 25 walks.”
After the loss, Head Coach John Scanzano spoke about how he felt the game went. “In the beginning, I felt great. At the end, it was terrible. We started off strong and the pitching just didn’t go our way,” he said.
Scanzano noted bright spots in the offense. “We started off great. We ran our offensive play, hit and had runs, steals, delayed steals and sacrifice bunts. We ran our offense to perfection, needed another big hit, we just didn’t get it,” he said.
The Cougars fell to 8-12 in the season with 15 games left. As for what he was prepared to do for the next series against Ocean County College, Scanzano said, “Win. Our starters will be back. Our starting pitchers will be healthy. We have some players who are banged up, three of our position players didn’t play today, so we should be ready to go.”
