Alonso Ravens Shut Out Leto Falcons At Home

Written by Staff on February 24th, 2016

It was a happy site for the home crowd Tuesday night as the Alonso Ravens defeated the Leto Falcons 8-0 to pick up their first home win of the season. The Ravens (3-3) started the season losing their first three games by a combined scored of 22-11 but now have won three in a row, outscoring opponents 29-2 in those three games. The Ravens bring their record to .500 just in time for a real tough stretch on their schedule.

Alonso led 1-0 heading into the bottom of the fourth inning when the offense hit their stride. The Falcons (1-3) got the first out of the inning when they forced the batter to swing at a 3-0 pitch and he grounded out to the shortstop. The next batter, senior Mike Paule, reached base safely on a ground ball passed the shortstop. Paule advanced to second on a balk from Felix Rosario and was on third shortly there after when Jared DeSantolo hit a line-drive into left field.

Rosario struck out the next batter he faced and looked to get out of the inning unscathed, but an error by the Falcons infield kept the defense on the field and allowed Paule to cross the plate for the second run of the game for the Ravens. That was only the beginning as three batters later, Ryan Mejia came to plate and sent a ground ball passed the third baseman, scoring DeSantolo and Louis Ortiz to give them a 4-0 lead. The ground-ball single by the next batter, infielder Jose Ciccarello brought home DeSantolo and freshman Jonathan Cruz to increase the lead to six. Two more runs scored before the inning was over.

Although they scored eight, one run was all senior right-hander Ryan Fernandez needed his Ravens teammates to score as he was dominant from start to finish. Fernandez went six innings throwing 69 pitches. He allowed just one hit while striking out eight of the 20 batters he faced. He was in control all night as he started ahead in the count by throwing first pitch strikes to 13 of the 20 batters he faced. Kevin Tabares came in for the seventh inning and threw 16 pitches to preserve the victory.