Habu splits weekend double header

Vernon — On Saturday, April 6,the Habu 13-year-old travel baseball team played a double header in Lopatcong against the Phillipsburg Stateliners. The Habu bats exploded in the first game with a 14-7 win.

Habu lead off batter "J-Rod" Rodriguez opened up the game with a hard hit single and then scored on a line drive double to left field by Nick "The Blade" Grifone.

Brady Keenan came to bat and promptly drilled a deep line drive to right/center field, hitting his first of two home runs for the day giving Habu a 2-0 lead.

After Brandon Lavorini singled, Christian "C" Sasso completed the Habu scoring by driving in Lavorini and a 3-0 Habu lead. Nick "The Blade" lead off the Habu third inning with a single followed by Keenan's RBI line drive triple down the right field line. Brandon Lavorini singled in Keenan giving Habu a 5-0 lead.

The third inning showed no sign of a Habu slowdown as J-Rod and Mike Suppa singled to open the inning followed by a single off the bat of Nick Grifone. Brady Keenan, who already hit a home run and triple, came to the plate and promptly doubled in J-Rod and Suppa, and an 8-0 Habu lead.

In the sixth inning J-Rod and Suppa lead off with walks followed by an RBI single by Grifone, which scored J-Rod. Keenan came to the plate needing a single to hit for the cycle. Not to be denied, Keenan singled in Suppa followed by RBI singles from Lavorini and Robbie Martarano and an RBI double by Matt Bell.

Keenan started on the mound for Habu and threw three innings giving up three runs on four hits and striking out seven Stateliner batters. Following Keenan was Christian "C" Sasso, who threw two innings of solid relief giving up no runs and striking out two. Closing the game for Habu was Mike Suppa, who struggled through the sixth inning but secured a 14-7 win.

Game two
The second game started out rough as Brandon Lavorini saw the Stateliner bats come to life for five runs in the first inning and three runs in the second inning. Robbie Martarano followed Lavorini and shut down the Stateliners in the third inning. Habu battled back in the third inning with five runs, cutting the Stateliner lead to 8-5.

After two batters were out "J-Rod" started a rally with a single followed by Mike Suppa's walk and a single by Nick Grifone. Brady Keenan now stood in the batters box as the Stateliner coach told his pitcher not to give Brady anything good to hit. Keenan sent a 3-1 pitch 350 feet to deep center field and a grand slam home run, scoring J-Rod, Suppa and Grifone ahead of him. Lavorini singled and scored on an RBI single by Robbie Martarano.

The Stateliners scored three more runs in the fifth inning for an 11-5 lead but Habu answered back with two runs in the fifth inning off the bats of Grifone, Lavorini, Sasso and Martarano.

The Stateliners scored one more run in the sixth inning, closing out the game with a 12-7 win over Habu.

Habu will play next Sunday at Rockaway.

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