H.S. BASEBALL

Iona Prep 9

Mount 8

Iona Prep’s Marcus Coles came into yesterday’s meeting with Mount St. Michael’s on a hot streak. But the senior, who is batting over .500, found himself 0-for-3 heading up to the plate with the winning run on second base.

Coles had seen a healthy dose of curves his prior at-bats and expected the same from Mountaineers reliever Gino Matias.

“I have a lot of trouble hitting the curve,” Coles admitted. “I knew [Matias] was going to throw me nothing but curves.”

And Matias did, but Coles finally broke through and ripped a 2-2 curve into center, plating Chris Alleva (who had singled and stolen second) to give Iona Prep a 9-8 win in eight innings.

Coles’ heroics were set up by Mount’s Danny Muniz in the sixth inning.

Muniz, who was struck in the left elbow with a ball during warm-ups and missed the first three innings, got Mount (4-3) back into the game in the sixth when it was trailing 8-7.

The senior battled Iona reliever Matt Featherstone for 10 pitches before stroking a single to right. He then stole second, third and scampered home on a wild pitch to tie the score.

Muniz had gotten the Mountaineers’ offense going three innings earlier when he ripped a 2-1 fastball from Iona starter Mike Telesca over the right-field fence for a grand slam to give his team a 4-3 lead.

But the Mountaineers didn’t stop there.

Brandon Cruz smacked a double off the left field fence following Muniz’ homer. After walks to Matias and Kyle Traylor, Ceasar Garrido lifted a fly ball to center that Steve Puato dropped, allowing Cruz, Matias and Traylor to score and make it a 7-3 game.

But Puato quickly made amends for his error by leading off the fourth with a double off Mount starter Larry Berger. Alleva then walked and shortstop Dan Leach (three hits) roped a triple into the right-field corner, scoring Puato and Alleva to cut the lead to 7-5.

Puato also came up big again in the fifth with a two-out single that scored Eric Byrnes, giving Iona an 8-7 lead.