BASEBALL: Revamped Falcons open with pair of wins at Spring Break tourney
BY DAN STICKRADT
SENIOR EDITOR
dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com
Twitter: @LocalSportsFans
ROCHESTER HILLS — A year ago, Rochester featured one of the state’s top baseball prospects. The Falcons still finished a trio of games under the five-hundred mark.
Gone from that team is several players, most notable Nick Bradley, who played in the MHSBCA East-West All-Star Game and is now at Western Michigan University. Still, third-year coach Eric Magiera thinks his team might be a little more talented.
“We’ll miss Nick Bradley,” admitted Magiera. “But I think we are actually a bit deeper and more balanced. We don’t have the superstar, but we have a lot of young kids that are baseball-first players. Last year we had some good athletes, but a lot of them didn’t play summer baseball and it showed.
“We had a lot of guys, a lot of seniors who didn’t hit that well, starters that hit .180, .220, .200. We have some young guys that can really hit this year,” added Magiera. “We might be young, and we might have two freshmen and four sophomores that will play a lot this season. But we have better baseball players.”
Rochester opened up the 2012 season Monday with a pair of wins in the third annual Oakland County Spring Break Baseball Tournament, a tournament that is the brainchild of Rochester Athletics Director Vic Fournier.
Rochester defeated Madison Heights Lamphere, 6-2, and Southfield, 10-3, in pool play on the Falcons’ home diamond.
Mike Klotz pitched five innings to gain the win against Lamphere, which spent a bulk of last season ranked in the top 10 in Division 2. Sophomore Spiro Gilakos was 2-for-3 with a double and RBI. John Michelon was 1-for-4 but drove home a pair of runs for Rochester.
Against Southfield, Evan Surinck was 1-for-2 with two RBI. Jake Tobin counted a triple and two RBI amongst his contributions.
Jack Devine struck out seven Bluejays over five innings of work to gain the decision on the mound.
“I think we’ll see some improvement in our pitching,” said Magiera.”We don’t have an ace like Bradley, but we have some kids that can throw strikes, some finesse pitchers. Plus, we can hit a lot better. How many times last year did we lose close games where we couldn’t get the clutch hit?
Rochester will continue Wednesday with a pair of pool play games at home with hopes of advancing to the Final Four winner’s bracket of the tournament, which features 11 schools.
“This was a nice start for us,” praised Mageira. “We’re looking forward to getting in some good games this week. We have league play starting next week already.”
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