Senior Mike Eglow is listed on the Albany Academy baseball roster as a pitcher, catcher and third baseman and firmly entrenched as the No. 3 hitter in the Cadets’ batting order.
Eglow started at second base against Section X champion Ogdensburg Free Academy in Tuesday’s regional semifinal game at St. Lawrence University. He delivered a triple, a double and a single at the plate and ended up closing out a 12-7 victory on the mound.
Closing was one of the few roles which Eglow hasn’t carried out in the course of the Cadets’ 16-5 season which continues today in a regional final game against Section VII champion Saranac Central at 4 p.m. at Bleecker Stadium.
“Mike Eglow plays all over the place for us,” said Albany Academy coach Dave Rider after the Cadets used an eight-run fifth inning to post the first state tournament baseball win in school history.
“We usually use him to get us out of a tough inning in the middle of the game. But today, he was pitching well, so we let him finish.”
Pitching well to Eglow means inducing groundballs, and he did just that against the Devils after relieving starter Ted Smallwood with one out in the fifth inning. In pitching 22⁄3 innings, he enticed six groundball outs, including double plays in the sixth and seventh innings.
“I have to keep everything around the knees and use my curveball to get ground balls for our infield, which is very good,” said Eglow.
“They had two very good hitters, and I tried to keep the ball away from them after we got that big lead.”
Eglow proved to be an extremely good hitter for Cadets and figured prominently in an 11-5 lead. In the first inning, he poled a wind-aided RBI triple to plate Justin Brock, who lined a long one-out triple. In the eight-run fifth inning, which turned into a nightmare for OFA (11-7), Eglow delivered the only two hits, a single and a two-out, two-run double.
In between, Devils’ pitchers Breton LaRose and Seth Pinkerton issued six walks and four wild pitches which scored runs.
Brock tripled and singled and scored four runs for the Cadets, Tyler Hynes singled twice and scored twice, Robert Lasch doubled and Smallwood, Sean Dempsey and Darien White all singled.
The Cadets’ eight-run fifth inning erased a 5-3 OFA lead. The Devils took advantaghe of an outfield error to score a single run in the second inning on a sacrifice fly by Breton LaRose and exploited an infield error in a four-run third when Brendan Arsenault lofted a three-run home run over the right field fence.
The Devils mounted a comeback effort by scoring twice in the fifth on RBI singles by Kinnon LaRose and Arsenault before Eglow retired the side with two groundouts and then pitched two scoreless innings.
“This was definitely not the kind of baseball we usually play. We had too many walks, two many hit batters and too many errors,” said Rider.
“Our shortstop, Justin Brock, had an error today, but he made some outstanding plays in the infield. He was a league all-star, along with our third baseman, and our infield has been very strong all year.
“Offensively, we did what we have been doing all season. We hit the ball well and were very aggressive on the bases to keep pressure on the other team. Their third baseman had a heck of game for them.”
OFA’s third baseman, Andrew LeBeau, handled six chances flawlessly in the field and reached base four times by belting a long double, drawing a walk and getting hit by pitches twice.
“Andrew LeBeau had a great game for us. He saved at least five runs at third base,” said OFA coach Mike Sargent, who completed a 31-year coaching career at the contest’s end.
“We had one very tough inning in the game, but I was very pleased at the way we fought back and never stopped fighting.”
Albany Academy 201 080 1 — 12 12 3
Ogdensburg 014 020 0 — 7 6 2
LaRose (L), Pinkerton (5), Farrell (6) and Tayler; Smallwood (W), Eglow (5) and Dempsey.
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