Cardinal Hayes coach Curt Scheibe took a stroll down memory lane Monday afternoon, but it wasn’t to recall one of the Cardinals’ biggest wins.
“In 1972 we were playing the Mount and the legendary Howie Smith was coaching them,” Scheibe said. “It was the semifinals at St. John’s University. How do you think he beat me? Sacrifice bunt. He sacrificed the man to second, a base hit scored him, sacrificed him to third and fly ball, tagged up.”
That’s a story Scheibe tells every team he coaches to hammer home the importance of moving runners over, especially in the wood bat era. And that’s something the Cardinals failed to do in a 1-0 loss to Xavier at Randall’s Island.
“There’s what a sacrifice bunt can do to you,” Scheibe said. “The inability to put the ball on the ground, maybe have them make a mistake, killed us.”
In the fifth inning, Kevin Rentas led off by reaching on an error by shortstop Brian Flanagan, but he was stranded as Chris Pena struck out looking, Moses Gonzalez grounded out to third and Gabe DeJesus popped out to center.
Stanley Susana, whose double to deep left field in the first was the hardest hit ball off Xavier starter Sean Meekins all game, slid into first for a two-out infield single in the sixth inning. But when the catcher got up to dust himself off and speak to the first base coach, Xavier first baseman David Eschen tagged him out to end the inning.
“My assistant called timeout and the umpire never acknowledged the timeout and my kid went over to talk to the assistant and their kid tagged him out,” Scheibe said.
Scheibe was more upset about what happened in the bottom of the seventh when Nathaniel Mercardo led off with a single to right and stole second base. Eric Alcantara and Rentas both struck out and Pena popped out to third to end the game.
“Our inability to be able to sacrifice bunt cost us the game,” he said.
It’s a shame because the Cardinals wasted a fantastic outing by Pena, who allowed one run on four hits, striking out six with two walks.
The lone run Xavier scored was on a wild pitch following an infield hit, a stolen base on a botched pickoff attempt and an all-important sacrifice bunt.
“I thought Chris had a great game,” Scheibe said. “He had a couple of real good games this year. He knows he’s in a dogfight because when I pitch him, he’s pitching against a team that’s very competitive.”
Xavier moves into a second-place tie with Regis, three games back of first-place All Hallows in the Bronx/Manhattan division. Cardinal Hayes, meanwhile, is now 5-7 and tied with St. Raymond for fourth in the loss column.
“We’re all bunched up, us – Xavier, Regis and St. Raymond,” Scheibe said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. We’ve got LaSalle Tuesday, Raymond’s on Wednesday and Farrell on Friday night. We have to pick ourselves up. I told the kids we can either die now and turn the uniforms in or we can fight back and beat LaSalle tomorrow and St. Raymond on Wednesday.”
