After a quiet first two innings, the Blue Devils broke their early silence as junior Anthony Narciso led off by getting hit by a pitch, followed by a walk for senior Alex Lawrence. With a successful bunt from sophomore Owen O’Connor, the bases were loaded as senior co-captain Liam Sullivan stepped up to the plate. With a two-RBI single, Sullivan drove home Narciso and Lawrence to give the Blue Devils an early lead and ignite the offense.
The lineup continued to build on Sullivan’s momentum, as senior Brian Jordan, sophomore Andrew Digregorio, senior Andrew Lisnock and Lawrence combined to drive in five more runs, bringing the score to 7-0. Senior Anthony Bulger added the finishing touch in the bottom of the fifth with a two-run single, as the Blue Devils cruised past Union 9-3 in the UCIAC quarterfinals.
In the first round of counties, 6-seed Westfield defeated 11-seed Elizabeth 8-1, and 14-seed Union upset 3-seed Scotch Plains-Fanwood 6-5. “We knew they were a scrappy team and they just upset SPF,” Sullivan said. “We were coming in looking to put up some runs early and give Ian [Dickey] some space to breathe. We knew once we got ahead, we could start to drive them into the ground.”
The Blue Devil offense was nothing short of electric, accumulating 10 hits and 4 walks. On the other side of the ball, sophomore Ian Dickey pitched five innings with only one earned run, and the defense had zero errors compared to Union’s four. Head coach Jay Cook said, “Dickey set the tone for us. He worked himself into a couple jams, but he was able to get out of them.”
While there were apparent strengths throughout their performance, Sullivan noted how the team needs “to get better at throwing more strikes on a mound and not letting guys get deep in counts.” He said, “We can’t start getting complacent, either. Our players talk about it all the time. In the last two games, we put up a big lead and then we sat on it. We need to go through and close these guys out.”
The boys will travel to Mount Olive today at 4 p.m. “It could be a big Power Point game, so we’re going in trying to win, and we’re trying to get some Power Points for our state run,” Sullivan explained.
Continuing their run in the UCIAC tournament, the Blue Devils will take on Union Catholic at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday at Kean University — a rematch from last season, where Westfield took on the Vikings in the semifinals of the tournament. “We’ll stick with the same approach, keep going strikes and keep making plays in the field,” said Bulger.
