American Studies Senators off to strong start

If there is a mantra the American Studies Senators are living by this baseball season it’s “Unfinished Business.”

Last year the Senators rolled all the way to the PSAL ‘AA’ baseball championship game at Yankee Stadium where they fell to Eastside Community High School. It was a stinging loss the Senators are still feeling almost a full year later, and one that is the driving force for this season’s team.

“With seven returning seniors from last year that made it to the championship game, and we also made it to the championship game in our freshman year, we want to make it back there for a third time this year,” American Studies senior Jack Buckley said. “That’s what we’re looking to do and for us to win it this time otherwise there will be a void left.”

Well, so far so good for the Senators as Buckley and his teammates knocked off both Riverdale-Kingsbridge Academy (RKA) and Bathgate Educational Complex in their last two games this past week as they ran their record to 6-0 to start the season. But it was their game against RKA that was their key test of the week.

The Senators used a seven-run third inning to take a 9-0 lead against RKA before the Tigers rallied with four late runs to throw a minor scare into American Studies.

After American Studies took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI double by Buckley and a run-scoring single by Bo Wilke, the Senators erupted for their game-changing inning in the third. Casey Press and Chris Campuzano had RBI base hits with Buckley plating another run with a sacrifice fly. But American Studies was also aided by a pair of outfield misplays that allowed four other runs to score as the Senators grabbed a sizeable early lead that they would never relinquish.   

“We have a tendency to be able to do that,” American Studies head coach Howard Blitz said afterward. “When we smell a little blood in the water, we’re able to make the kill most of the time.”

And with Buckley in total command for most of his six innings of work, the Tigers had trouble getting anything going against the talented left-hander. About the only trouble Buckley found himself in came in the first inning when two RKA players reached base with hits with one out but Buckley fanned both Antoine Warner and Julio Paca to put an end to the Tigers’ threat.

“The first inning I got off to a little rough start but we got out of that with the two strikeouts and that was big for me,” said Buckley, who struck out 13 in the game while allowing five hits. “Getting out of that without giving up any runs was huge. For me the first inning is always the worst, I don’t really know why.

“But after that I settled in and started using my curveball for strikes and I used that most of the game to keep them off balance,” he continued. “A lot of [credit] goes to [catcher] Jakob [Feinstein] because he calls such a great game. I don’t think I shook him off more than two times. We were working backwards a little bit. We knew they wanted a first-pitch fastball and we’d go curveball, curveball and then fastball away. Stuff like that. All in all it was as good performance and hopefully we can keep building on it.”

Buckley appeared to get stronger as the game went on as he struck out three of the four RKA batters he faced in the fourth inning before striking out six straight Tigers through the fifth and sixth innings.

“He was outstanding. He’s been great the last couple of games,” Blitz said. “I haven’t seen anyone come close to him. We’ve played a couple of games against AAA teams and he’s the best pitcher I’ve seen so far.”

About the only tense moments for American Studies came in the seventh inning when Blitz lifted Buckley from the game due to his pitch count. Buckley wasn’t happy with the move but said he understood Blitz’ reason for doing it. But it made for a nervous seventh inning for the lefthander as RKA scored four runs in the seventh.

“Personally I just wanted to finish out the game. I think any competitor would,” Buckley said. “It was a little frustrating seeing the shutout go and the mistakes we made in the last inning but we overcame it. If you win six of the seven innings you’ll win the game.”

RKA coach John Reingold said missing out on a chance to score against Buckley in the first inning cost the much-improved Tigers a chance at the win.

“We touched him up in the first inning but we just couldn’t push a couple of runs across,” Reingold said after his Tigers (4-1) suffered their first loss of the season. “But once you allow him to get out of that and get into his groove then you make it that much harder. He’s good. He can definitely pitch at the next level. But I was OK with my guys. They could have rolled over and called it a day after five innings and they didn’t.”

The Senators (6-0) completed their unbeaten week with a 6-1 victory over Bathgate on Monday as Feinstein had two hits and drove in two runs.

Since the end of last season American Studies and RKA have seen Bronx Science move out of the AA Division into the AAA level, taking the defending regular-season champions out of the picture this year. That move, along with a veteran roster and the win over RKA, makes American Studies’ road to the postseason a little easier, Buckley said.

“I know for me and the seniors, the rivalry with Bronx Science has always been big so, yeah, I think we miss it,” Buckley said. “Those were always the two games on the schedule that you marked and looked forward to and both schools really came out in big numbers for those games and they came out a lot for the semifinal game last year (when the Senators defeated Bronx Science to advance to Yankee Stadium). Without them it definitely makes the division easier. This is a big win for us. RKA is a much better team than it was last year so getting this win definitely gives us a solid bump to winning the division.”

“This team has moxie,” Blitz said of his Senators. “We lost a couple of key guys but I have a couple of new ninth graders that have kind of stepped in. We’re going to be there. We just have to keep on an even keel and we’ll be fine.”