Step B conquered, on to Step C...

As a high school baseball enthusiast, you have to love March! It's cold, raw and the baseball enthusiasm is tremendous.

The TR South Indians hosted their first scrimmage of the season, defeating Ocean Township, 2-1, in eight innings.

In a pitcher's duel type of atmosphere, the Indians played superb defense got some clutch hitting and clutch baserunning on their way to victory.

Senior John Martone blasted a solo home run over the 379-foot sign in left-center field at Ken Frank Baseball Stadium to tie the game up in the bottom of the seventh inning.

The Indians went on to win it in the bottom of the eighth when senior Anthony Amatucci smacked a semi-line drive off of the Spartans shortstop's arm, scoring junior Kyle Lamar from second. Lamar had singled to open the inning and had gone to second on a two-out hit batsmen.

Ryan MacPherson, Drew Holt, Zack DelVento and Amatucci each pitched two strong innings for the Indians. Ocean got its only run on a two-out wild pitch when a knuckle curve from Holt got away from the catcher.

From a coaching persepective, South showed much better confidence, poise and execution on defense. Thus one can conclude that the hard work of fungo baseball from Monday and Tuesday paid off. The Indians executed a successful backdoor play at first base and another run down play.

Tomorrow we will work to polish it up even more.

South hosts Marlboro on Friday and on Saturday hosts Middletown North and Edison.