Four-inning no-hitter helps Forest Hill win

[attach]4411[/attach]For last year’s upstarts Forest Hill it’s been a flightless 2011 campaign in Tier 1 varsity boys baseball.

Stuck with an 0-4 record heading into their final match of the season, the Falcons young pitching staff proved they still have a little surprise left in the rotation.

Included in the armed guard is Cole Zeldin who didn’t allow a single hit in four innings on the mound. In addition, he struck out five and only walked one. That standout performance led to a 4-2 win over Danforth Redhawks.

Still, the base on balls was tough to take for Zeldin, who was three outs away from perfection.

“I thought I should have gotten the perfect game, but I am okay with the no-hitter,” he said, adding everyone on the roster were strong both at the dish and on the field.

With the absence of pitcher Daisuke Suzuki, who graduated last year, Falcons coach Patrick Dinsmore admitted it’s been tougher to find the win column.

Zeldin’s great game is not to discredit Danforth’s rookie who took the mound when it was discovered Michael Speaker had pitched too many innings in the day.

Coming off a 5-4 win over Lawrence Park, the Redhawks sent William Mattson to face Forest Hill.

He only came under fire in the bottom of the third when Ben Pape led off the inning with a shot up the third base line. After two straight outs, Mattson walked Adam Feigelsohn and then let Yuji Suzuki outrun a dribbler up the first base line.

Next at bat, Dean Cohen bounced a two-run double off shortstop Jason Orloff’s leg.

Shaking off the three-run third, Mattson returned to the mound in the fourth to sit down the first two batters he faced, but got tagged by Vlad Turea with a double to right field and then another double to Lee Mosbaugh up the third base line again.

Tired arms and inexperience came into play for Danforth, assistant coach Carmen Marchese said.

“We executed well, but not consistently,” he said.

Still the work of Mattson and reliever Orloff, shutting down all three batters faced in the bottom of the fifth, kept the game close.

Dinsmore is hoping for a repeat performance from his bullpen in their first playoff game June 6.

“Hopefully we can get pitching like we did today from Cole,” he said, adding the bats need to be just as affective. “If we get a few hits we have a shot.”