5/13/09
Varsity Baseball advances in GMC
DUNELLEN — Dylan Papa sat alone on a metal bench in a corner of the dugout.
With two outs in the home fourth, the junior left-hander stood up, removed his warmup jacket, picked up his glove and pressed his body against a metal fence.
Papa was staring at the ground as he mentally prepared to return to the mound when it suddenly dawned on him why teammates, in keeping with baseball tradition, were maintaining a safe distance.
"I didn't really think anything about it until (then)," Papa said. "I was trying to think in my head if I let up a hit and I didn't remember one."
Papa's teammates finally broke their silence after he struck out Sean Gibney on three straight pitches for the final out of the sixth inning to record a perfect game in a 10-0 mercy-rule win over eighth-seeded Dunellen in the first round of the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament at Columbia Park on Monday.
"For him to come out here and be perfect is just unbelievable because you've got kids who are up there swinging and trying to whack and put the ball in play," said Dunellen coach Leo Danik, whose Destroyers entered the game batting .267 as a team.
The ninth-seeded Tigers (10-8) will face the winner of today's first-round game between Carteret and St. Joseph in Wednesday's quarterfinals.
Papa displayed pinpoint accuracy, throwing just 54 pitches, only eight of which were out of the strike zone. With the exception of five curveballs and one changeup, every pitch Papa threw was a fastball. He worked both corners of the plate effectively, nibbling mostly on the outside black. Papa struck out seven, recorded three flyball outs, six groundball outs and one infield pop-up.
"From when I was warming up I just felt that I was going to throw good," Papa said. "The velocity was there, the command was there. I know with the team I have behind me that as long as I throw strikes and let them hit the ball good things will happen."
Third baseman Nick Levendusky preserved the perfect game with a spectacular defensive play for the third out of the fourth inning. Papa tried to flag down a comebacker on the third-base side of the bag, but the ball caromed off his glove. Levendusky, whose momentum was headed toward the shortstop side, changed direction, bare-handed the ball and threw out speedy Eric Vestol by a step.
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