Baseball: Panas Wins Pitching Duel at Hen Hud

Pitcher Brandon Cohall went the distance allowing only five hits, striking out three and walking none in Walter Panas' 2-0 triumph against host, the Hendrick Hudson Sailors, in yesterday's opening round of the Hen Hud Tournament at Kenneth A. Byrnes Field.

Cohall’s outstanding performance puts the Panthers (4-2) in the tournament championship game against Ossining, which defeated Croton-Harmon 3-1 in its opening-round contest. Panas will play Ossining in the title game at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 20.

Hen Hud (2-5) will play Croton-Harmon in the consolation game the same day at 11 a.m.

“I knew that I had to stick to my game plan, which was just to throw strikes, no walks and limit the base runners,” Cohall said. “I knew that if I threw strikes, that the defense would be there behind me. Overall, we were able to play a good game.”

Panas took the lead in the opening inning when lead-off hitter Jeremy Guerrero reached base on an error, stole second, advanced to third on Miguel Arroyo’s grounder to second before scoring on Kevin Reynoso’s sacrifice fly to right.

Panas doubled its lead to 2-0 when Carmine Gentile led off the fourth by getting on by an error and eventually scoring. The Panthers threatened to build their lead even further when they had second and third with no one out.

However, Hen Hud pitcher Dan Briggi, who threw a complete game one-hitter, induced two fly-outs and a ground out to end the threat.

“I just focused,” Briggi said. “In a situation like that, you just have to bear down and throw strikes. I was trying to run the fastball by them on some of those kids and not let them make so much contact.”

Hen Hud had its own threat in the fifth inning, when Chris Gianetta led off with a rope to left field for a double before reaching third on stolen base. However, Gianetta and Ryan Brennan were left stranded on the bases when Cohall was able to record a strikeout and a fly out to end the Sailors’ threat.

“I have been in some jams before so I knew the important thing was just to keep my composure, keep throwing strikes and let my defense do the work,” Cohall said. “I knew if those things happened, I would be able to get myself out of it.”

Panas coach Anthony Fata was pleased with Cohall’s performance but would’ve liked to see more production from his bats.

“Brandon is a kid I know that is going to give me innings every time he is on that mound,” Fata said. “He battled. We didn’t hit today. We go from hitting 17 hits the day before to I don’t know even if we had three hits today. A win is a win, you take it. We just have to be consistent with our bats.”

“If we can stay consistent with our bats, our pitching is good enough to keep us in games, like you saw today,” Fata continued. “We just have to keep battling every day and just get better every day. That’s all I can ask from these kids.”

Hen Hud coach Paul Natale was also pleased with his pitcher, Briggi.

“He allowed just one hit, a 110-ten foot bloop single, that’s it, it was the only hit,” Natale said. “The problem is we are leaving a lot of men on base. We can’t get a break. We hit some rockets today, right at people.

“We just have to try and keep plugging,” Natale added. “He (Cohall) pitched a great game, what are you going to do. Our kid pitches a one-hitter and we lose. We have to score runs. You don’t win scoring zero. We are leaving a lot of guys on base.”

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