Story by Coach Al Coster

North Bellmore, NY – The North Bellmore North Merrick Rebels improved to 4-0 in NJBL with another double-header sweep beating the LI Royals 4-1 and 12-1 at Gunther field yesterday.

Awesome defense and pitching in both games. Boys making nice progress with the bigger field.

In game one, Valeriano went the distance in a 1-hitter and only faced one more batter than the minimum. It was a huge performance given that his 69 pitches let us pitch him the whole game and rest the rest of our guys for the second game.

On offense we only had 5 hits but they were productive and timely hits, something the Rebels have lacked of late. Porricelli had two hits that included one off the top of the fence. Proios, Coster and Valeriano also had hits.

The most exciting play of the day was Conry’s perfectly executed suicide squeeze that scored porriceli. The Rebels are two-for-two in executing the play since working on it in practice last week.

Game two was won 12-1 and featured Proios as the starter who also went deep into the game giving up only one run and two hits in five innings. Porricelli came in for the 6th to get the save.

The Royals tried to jump start their offense by laying down bunts but the Rebels defense sparkled. In the 6th inning with Porricelli on the mound, one of their only base runners tried to steal home and was tagged out by McAdam who showed off his defensive flexibility by also flashing the leather at 2nd base, and in the outfield.

On offense everything clicked. Every player in the lineup reached base safely at least once. Multiple hits came from Delaney, McAdam, Valeriano and Porricelli. Those with multiple runs scored included McAdam and Acri with three each and Valeriano and Proios with two each.

The Rebels now have two weeks off between games and look forward to continued practice on ‘the big field’.