By Al Muskewitz
CARNEYS POINT, N.J. – The Salem Community College baseball team enjoyed its most prolific outing of the season Tuesday, bouncing back from a tough loss the day before in a big way to crush Luzerne County Community College, 20-2.
The Mighty Oaks (12-20) scored 20 runs for the second time this season, but this time they did it with a season-high 17 hits. Twelve batters had at least one hit and all 14 reached base at least once. Every spot in the lineup had at least one hit, one run and one RBI.
Demetrius DeRamus had two extra-base hits and his leadoff home run in the third inning touched off a 10-run inning that broke open the game. Matt Murphy went 3-for-3 and had two hits in the big inning. Jared Vandersteur had two hits and three RBIs. Cole Dawson went 2-for-2 and Mike Ochmanski had two RBIs.
"We are a deep team," Mighty Oaks coach John Holt said. "We have a lot of talent here. You get an opportunity like this to kind of make sure guys are sharp and ready to go, especially with what we have coming up over the next couple weeks, we're going to need that depth.
"We've got to make sure we're keeping our guys engaged and our guys are ready to go when their number's called and to their credit they do a real nice job with it."
Both of the pitchers the Mighty Oaks used in the seven-inning game had strong showings.
Sophomore starter John McAllister retired nine of the first 10 Trailblazers he faced and took a no-hitter into the fourth inning. He gave up just two hits, two runs and struck out eight in five innings. Freshman Will Jones, making his fourth appearance of the season, pitched the final two innings, gave up two singles and got all six of his outs via strikeout.
The Oaks got it going early scoring three runs in the first, highlighted by an RBI double by DeRamus and an RBI single by Murphy.
They sent 15 batters to the plate in the second inning. The first eight all reached safely and scored. Besides DeRamus' leadoff homer, the Oaks got a two-run single by Ochmanski, an RBI single by Dawson, an RBI double by Yen Rodriguez, sacrifice flies by Nick Ciesielka and Ben Charbonneau and a two-run single by Vandersteur.
Luzerne County spoiled the shutout with two runs in the fourth. Salem got the runs back in the fifth on Vandersteur's RBI double and run-scoring single by Joe Fekete, then rounded out the scoring with five in the home sixth.
It was the Oaks' fourth win in their last five games as they look to make a late-season run for the playoffs. It also was the fourth time in the last five games they scored 10 runs or more. They return to action Wednesday in a doubleheader at Ocean County College.
