Varsity Baseball Captures First Season Win Against Columbia

The boys varsity baseball team secured their first win of the season against Columbia High School on Monday, April 10th at Tangora Field. Columbia High School, located in Maplewood Township, is ranked number six in the American Division of the Super Essex Conference (SEC), right ahead of Nutley who is ranked number seven. 

High school baseball only plays a regulation of seven innings per game; however, this match went into three extra innings. Sophomore Captain Drew Slomkowski started off the game pitching the first four innings. He gave up a single run home run in the first inning but quickly turned it around to finish off his game with six total strikeouts. Junior Jayden Velez came in after Slomkowski to pitch two innings, Jacob LoMonaco pitched the two after Velez, and Junior Erik Thompson pitched the two innings to finish off the game. 

Senior Right Fielder Brandon Lucia had three hits throughout the game, one home run, and brought in four runs while senior Captain Derek Lanzo had three runs batted in (RBI’s).

The Raiders and Cougars battled throughout the game for the lead, and the Raiders got most of their runs off of Columbia pitcher Jack Kalsched, walking a lot of players. The Raiders were down 11-5 going into the seventh inning, potentially the last of the game, until they tied it 11-11 in the bottom of the inning. After this, the eighth and ninth innings were scoreless. In the bottom of the 10th inning Lanzo hit a walk off pop fly which brought in the runner on third, Lucia, to win the game 12-11. 

Nutley is playing Wayne Valley on Saturday, April 15th at 3 p.m.. The game is located at the Somerset Patriots field and tickets are $15 each.