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Sports

Watson, Rebels, Put an End to Two-Game Skid, Mercy CBA 10-0

Howell Rebels baseball defeates Christian Brothers Academy 10-0 after dropping two in a row.

After dropping back-to-back games and falling to 1-2, the Rebels faced the perennial power Christian Brothers Academy Colts. Instead of falling into a early season hole, Howell leaned on ace pitcher Dan Watson to pick up the much-needed win.

The game was further proof that Watson is quickly establishing himself as one of the top pitchers in the conference as he cruised through a 10-0, five-inning victory. 

Watson was magnificent, limiting the Colts to just four hits. The righty induced nine ground ball outs, to go along with his four strikeouts. The only out recorded through the air was the final of the game. Through 13 innings this year, he has not surrendered a single run.

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"In his first game, the majority of the outs were strikeouts." said Howell head coach Eric Johnson, "Today there were plenty of ground balls which is a safe play for us, that's what we want."

Howell's defense supported Watson extremely well, in particular, first basemen Joe Raccuglia.

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To record the first out of the game, the senior dove to knock a ball down, and recovered in time to beat the runner to the bag. In the second, Brody High scooped up a ball and tossed it over to Raccuglia as they teamed up to get the first out of the inning. Later in the same frame, short stop Carmine Palummo secured a grounder and hurried to try and make the throw in time. Raccuglia made the nice snag to end the inning.

In Watson's last start, the offense just produced one run, which was all he needed. Yesterday, they came alive against a much more dangerous team.

After the first inning, Howell sat comfortably with a 5-0 lead, batting through the order.

"We just tried to shorten the game," said Johnson, "I told them to win every pitch, we didn't have a bad at bat today. I don't want to say we did that much better than we have been doing because we have been scoring runs fine, today we were just very focused."

Howell's first five batters reached before an out was recorded. Despite the lack of a 'signature' hit, everybody chipped in and played a part.

"That's what we wanted, everything spread out," said Johnson, who now, in two years as head coach at Howell has a 4-0 record against CBA. "We drew walks, faced four different pitchers and no one had more than two hits."

In the bottom of the first, Raccuglia and second basemen Brian Blood led off with hits. Palummo hit a double driving in the first Rebel run and eventually came around to score as well. The Rebel first short stop finished 2-for-2, with two RBI's, a run, and a walk at the plate. Kyle Conrad and Brody High drew back-to-back walks, with High's forcing in a run. Jesse Terranova and Jordan Reizer would both drive in runs.

Blood and Raccuglia each finished 1-for-2 with a walk and run scored.

Jordan Reizer and Jesse Ferigno were 2-for-3 with two RBI's, and Ferigno scored a run as well.

Howell now has two straight games at home, first coming this Wednesday when the Lions of Middletown North come to town at 3:45. On Friday Howell will be back at it, this time against Manalapan at 3:45 also.

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