Newport Knights starting pitcher Todd Reese is cool as a cucumber in pressure situations on the baseball diamond.
Reese, who pitched all seven innings in Newport’s 6-2 win against Skyline, allowed just five hits and two earned runs in a complete game effort. He threw a total of just 68 pitches. Newport improved their overall record to 14-2 while Skyline dropped to 9-7.
The Knights came into the contest on a six-game winning streak while Skyline had won four straight contests. Newport head coach Brad Files said both teams arrived at the showdown playing their best baseball of the season.
“Something had to give,” Files said of both team’s winning streaks. “We got a veteran club. We didn’t panic, we stuck together and pulled it out in the end. Nothing is going to be easy. We needed a game like that today to show some grit.”
Skyline scored a run in the bottom of the second inning, taking a 1-0 lead. The Knights got on track in the top of the sixth, scoring three runs and sending seven batters to the plate in the inning. The Knights added three more runs in the top of the seventh to put the game out of reach. Newport catcher Vinny Guinasso had 2 RBI and Thomas Day scored two runs in the win. Reese allowed three hits in the first two innings before finding his groove in the final five innings of play with a wide assortment of change-ups and breaking balls. Skyline coach Steve Darnell said Reese was calm and poised on the mound.
“We didn’t make adjustments at the plate. Their pitcher (Reese) made adjustments to our hitters. We started seeing more off-speed stuff and we weren’t able to make the adjustments. That was the difference in the game,” Darnell said.
Darnell was proud of his squad’s performance against the Knights despite the loss.
“We competed. We had quality pitching and played good defense. Newport is a very good team and are very experienced. We are a very young team,” Darnell said. “We played some very good baseball today outside of two innings (sixth and seventh).”
Shaun Scott: 425-453-5045; sscott@bellevuereporter.com
