WILMINGTON – The Salesianum baseball team started a difficult three-day stretch against three top-six teams by defeating third-ranked Caravel, 14-4, in five innings on April 23.
The Sals, ranked fifth, started Reece Bolton, who struck out three in the first two innings. The Sals’ offense exploded in the second inning. Brendan Pacheco hit a home run to deep right-center to start off the inning. Ethan Valentine then reached on infield single and stole second. He would score on a double by Matthew Querey.
Querey reached third on a wild pitch and scored on a perfect bunt single by Dominic Ragazzo. Jacob Dunion was safe on an error, and Ragazzo scored. Joe Setting walked, followed by a 400-foot double off the bat of Alex Hinton to score two more runs.
The Buccaneers would get four runs back in the third, keyed by an RBI single by Ethan DeRegis, a two-run single by Cole Reynolds, and a run-scoring triple by Jakob Hoffman.
Sallies answered with six more runs in the bottom of the third. Valentine led off with a single, followed by a walk to Querey. Samuel DelCollio singled home Vslentine to make it 7-4. Ragazzo and Dylan Rees both RBI singles. Singleton then scored another run with a triple, and Hinton had an RBI single.
The Buccaneers loaded the bases in the fourth and fifth innings but couldn;t score. The Sals ended the game in the bottom of the fifth as Hinton doubled, follwed by a Pacheco single. Valentine knocked both runners in with a game-ending single.
The Sals banged out 13 hits and took advantage of four Caravel errors to improve to 6-1. Hinton led the way with three hits. Sallies faces No. 6 St Mark’s on the road tomorrow at 4 p.m. They host top-ranked Appoquinimink on Thursday at 4.
Caravel dropped to 5-2; they travel to Glasgow on Thursday at 3:45 p.m.
