Vikings come up short in hard fought game
By Guest Columnist Channing Whitaker
On Friday April 26th at 3:45 pm, Newark Memorial came into town to take on our Vikings baseball squad coached by Frank Durand. In the top of the 2nd inning with the score tied at 0-0 and with Newark with a runner on second base with 0 outs, a line drive was caught right to the 2nd baseman Brandon Fenwick and since the Newark runner was off the bag, he flipped it to shortstop Nate Schmitz who was on second base for the huge double play. Irvington got out of the inning with no damage done. Now in the bottom of the 3rd inning with the score still at 0-0 with 0 outs, Andrew Jenkerson walked; Brandon Fenwick had a sacrifice bunt, but only for the Newark pitcher to have a throwing error with Brandon being safe and Andrew Jenkerson going to third base on the error. The very next batter Chris Docena had an RBI groundout bringing in Brandon to put the Vikings on top 1-0. In the next two innings, Newark tagged on 3 runs to take the 3-1 lead heading into the bottom of the 5th. Irvington had a chance though in the bottom of the 5th inning to do get back into the game. With bases loaded and 2 outs, Andrew Mack hit a fly ball to dead center field only to be caught as the Vikings stranded 3 runners. The score would hold for the rest of the game (total 7 innings).
After the game, I asked Chris Docena about his thoughts about the game. He said, “We played a good game and we had great hits but we just couldn’t find holes in the defense. I also asked how the season has been going so far and his thoughts about the whole team. He said, “Overall so far, we started off hot and have done well so far. Our team is great and we work together and just have fun on the baseball field.”
