Stellar Pitching Leads Coral Park Past Reagan 5-0

Occasionally, you witness events that make you feel as if sports are made out of movies. Monday afternoon’s game between Ronald Reagan and Coral Park was one of those events.

The star of this film was Daniel Lopez.

The Rams cleanup hitter, Lopez could be heard from the warm ups energizing his team, with screams that created an atmosphere suitable for a remake of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. His passionate yelling and cheering didn’t stop throughout the entire game.

“I play every day like it’s my last game, because you never know when it is,” the charismatic Lopez said. “Honestly, I’m just having fun on my senior year.”

His energy was a welcome sight for his team, helping to fuel the Rams to a 5-0 shut out over Reagan.It was the first win of the season at home for first-year Manager Juan Carnicero, whose team improved to 3-2 overall.

The game was a pitching duel from the beginning between Fernando Bolanos and Christian Feliu. The main difference in the contest was the defensive play of both sides. The visiting team committed three errors that cost them four of the five runs the Rams scored against Bolanos.

Bolanos struck out four in four innings pitched for the Bisons (2-2).

For his part, Feliu was the star of the game in earning the victory in the duel. He shut out the Bison lineup with smart pitching, working the corners, and keeping hitters off balance with a great breaking ball, off-speed pitches, and a blazing fastball. Only one ball he pitched was hit hard, a double by centerfield Joe Diaz. It was one of only two hits surrendered by Feliu, and the other was a slow infield-hit.

“I just threw a lot of strikes; that’s all you can do as a pitcher,” Feliu said. “You keep hitting it, and you just pound the strike zone until you get out of there.”

Carnicero said that his starting pitcher threw well, and that’s all he could ask for, for his starter to give the team a chance to win.

Even if shaky, the visiting team’s defense provided one of the highlights of the game. The centerfielder Diaz picked up a ball that reached into his field after an error, and fired it to home plate, stopped the home team’s hopes and the runner in the inning.

Bisons Manager J.C. Heguet said that his pitching was really solid, but they lacked defense. His team needed to make the right plays and they didn’t.

“The defense was way off,” Heguet said. “We committed errors when we needed the crucial play.”

On the other side, Carnicero was really smart with his changes and decisions. He trusted his starter through the whole game, and was hard on a runner who didn’t hustled to first base. He replaced the player with Marvin Parrales, who stole a couple bases and scored two runs.

“It has been up and down all season depending on which team shows up, and we showed up today,” Carnicero said. “We led through the whole game.”

The energizing Lopez may have provided the spark and was the soul for his team, but the thunder was brought by third baseman Ariel Lauries. He was a perfect 3-for-3 with an important RBI. It seemed to be one of those clicking moments for him, with perfect timing, since he was on a slump that saw him hit only 1-for-10 to start the season.

“I’m coming back from struggling a little bit,” Lauries said. “I came into this game trying not to think about the hitting, just stroking and trying to play great baseball.”

Carnicero, who worked at Coral Park up to 2007, has a lot of expectations for his first season coming back to the program.

“I expect us to keep battling for this season. Every game we play is against a good opponent, so we cannot have an off day,” said Carnicero. “We have to come out and play hard every game.”

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