Sports
West Orange Falls to Livingston
Livingston and West Orange squared off on Wednesday for the second meeting between the two division foes.
Seniors Connor Kimmel and Jordan Farber—the trusty middle infield for Livingston—led the Lancers to a 6-4 victory over conference foe West Orange on Wednesday.
Kimmel and Farber combined to go 4-for-8 with a pair of homeruns and knocking in four of Livingston’s six runs.
“We’re a pretty good fastball hitting team and we got into counts where we expected fastballs,” Kimmel said. “We were facing one of the better pitches in the county and we knew we had to make him work.”
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Livingston faced West Orange’s righty Adam Miller. Miller pitched incredible this season even though his win-loss record does not indicate that. Miller is 1-7, but has a 1.71 ERA (earned run average) and averages 7 strikeouts a game.
“Adam has been great for us all year,” West Orange head coach Stephan Zichella said. “We just haven’t given him enough run support.”
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Run support and errors handed Miller another loss on Wednesday.
Livingston got out to an early 1-0 lead in the top of the first as Brett Birmbaum scored on a Connor Kimmel single.
West Orange struck in the bottom half of the second inning as Haseem Williams hit a towering homerun over the left field fence with Dan Campbell on base to give the Mountaineers a 2-1 edge.
Livingston tacked on two more runs in the top of the fourth. The Lancers had the bases loaded and Justin Tepper laced a slider right up the middle to plate both Doug Bresnick and Jake Dock.
“That was my one mistake today,” Miller said. “It was a hanging slider and [Tepper] put a good swing on it.”
However, Williams brought the game back to a 3-3 tie after he roped a triple to right field and that scored Campbell again.
Connor Kimmel led of the fifth inning with a lead off homerun and Jordan Farber would score on a Doug Bresnick single giving the Lancers a 5-3 lead.
Livingston increased their lead as, this time, Farber led the seventh inning off with a homerun.
“It was a matter of patience,” Farber said. “You want to make good pitchers work and get into hitting counts. That’s what we did today and we picked up the win.”
