Cranford Baseball Defeats Dayton

Cranford southpaw Nick Cook delivered a grand slam to help lead the Cranford varsity baseball team to a 11-5 victory over Dayton in the first round of the Union County Tournament on Saturday, May 1.

"The guy made mistakes, he walked a couple of guys, gave opportunities to everyone else, and he just left it out over the plate, I got a good pitch to hit," senior Cook said of the home run pitch.

Cook also delivered with his arm, throwing a solid three innings of two-hit ball, giving up one earned run while striking out three.

"I thought that we did a good job getting a number of runs early in the game," said Cranford head coach Dennis McCaffery. "Nick Cook did a good job, getting a good pitch to hit, he drove it out for a grand slam, it set a real nice tone for the game."

Dayton picked up a run, but Cranford answered back with eight runs in the bottom of the first and held the Bulldogs at bay from there.

"It's always nice to play with a lead," said McCaffery. "It sets a nice tone, and it's a credit to our kids. They've been hitting every morning for the last two weeks prior to school, 6:30 in the morning they're hitting, really trying to improve in that area of the game. It's a hard working group of kids. Hopefully we'll continue to improve."

Cranford's highlights included Rob Ghiretti's run-scoring triple in the sixth inning and a squeeze play by Justin Van Ostenbridge, who laid down a bunt to score Ghiretti in the same frame.

Ghiretti went 3-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI. Sean Trotter and Mark Osofsky each scored two runs and added a hit, as Cranford improved to 13-3 on the season.

"Right now I'm feeling real good at the plate," said Ghiretti, a senior who has four hits in his last five at-bats.