The North Palm Beach Titans closed in on the end of their regular season at the Roger Dean Cardinal Complex on Saturday with a convincing 10-0, 10-2 sweep of the Hollywood Riptide. It was the Titans 9 th win in the last 12 games and comes at just the right time of the season.
After a horrendous 3-8 start the North Palm team turned their season around climbing into second place in the Sunshine State Wooden Bat League. "We dug ourselves too big of a hole to catch league champion Boca Raton," said Coach Chuck Nelson, "but our pitching has tightened up and we have played some good solid baseball in the last month. I was beginning to wonder for a while if we could ever get out of that tale spin."
The turnaround is coming at just the right time since the Titans are entering the AABC Southeast Regional Championships this weekend at the Roger Dean Complex. State champions and State runner-up teams from five states will begin play Thursday with a berth in the AABC World Series in Houston, Texas on the line for the winner.
The success of the Titans late season surge is largely due to an offense that was very lethargic in June and a young pitching staff that took its lumps before getting on track. Titan starters had a whopping ERA of over 6 per game before turning things around. The pitching staff is under 3 right now for July and that is a credit to some young guys stepping it up. Tony Flores (High Point, N.C.) once again anchors the staff with Sean Swaringen, Sean Tighe, and Charley Robbins, a trio of righthanders from South Fork High School, picking up a good share of the innings after that. Brent Bush, the only lefty on the staff, has been real solid the last month in a closer role and Mike Gottlieb (Palm Beach Gardens/North Florida) is starting to come around also. Robbins is headed for Emory and Tighe and Swaringen will be going to IRCC this fall. Veteran right hander Teddy Fallon (S.C.-Upstate) is out for the year as is Coleman Farrell (Palm Beach Atlantic).
The catching corps has been a real problem due to a rash of injuries. Reed Lishen (Royal Palm Beach/South Carolina-Upstate) and Kevin Koehn (Dwyer/Palm Beach Atlantic) are handling the duties well at the moment after losing two other catchers to injuries.
The defense has matured with the addition of Derrick Mollica (Gulf Coast Univ.) at shortstop. That allowed Dan Prieto (Cardinal Newman/Flagler) to move to second forming a solid middle. Sean Tighe has also played well at second when he is not pitching. Converted second baseman Aaron Nelson (Benjamin/Spring Hill) has picked up the third base position quickly after the lose of last year's starter Zach Rosetti. Craig Nelson and Swaringen handle the first base side and have been excellent on defense.
The offense has been led most of the year by outfielders Greg Veltri (Royal Palm Beach/Loyola-New Orleans, Damon Marino (Jupiter/Nova Southeastern) and third baseman Aaron Nelson along with designated hitter Ryan Hewitt (Cardinal Newman/Francis Marion). All are in the low to mid 300's with Veltri being red hot as of late with three homeruns and a double in his last 4 games. Outfielder Reno DiCarlantonio has been coming on after an early season knee injury put him on the sidelines for the first month of the season. Lishen has also been swinging the bat well as of late.
The Titans will need all the firepower they can muster come this weekend as the Southeast Regional gets underway. Entered from Georgia will be two strong teams from the Atlanta area in the Rockdale A's and the Douglasville Bulls. North Carolina will send the Greensboro Batting Center back to the regionals along with South Baldwin, Alabama, a repeat entry from 2006. Florida's perennial powerhouse, the St. Pete Black Sox and a newcomer, the Space Coast Titans will be representing Florida along with the North Palm Beach Titans who are making their third straight trip.
Nelson will bolster his roster with a couple of area players who will join the Titans for the tournament from league rival, Jupiter Hammertime. Ryan Ghianda (Jupiter/Bethune-Cookman) will add another solid bat and D.J. Ferguson (Jupiter/PBCC) will add some mound strength.
Last year's Southeastern Regional champion, the Tampa Elite, runners-up at the 2006 AABC World Series in Huntsville Texas, failed to make it back this year as did Palm Bay's Core Baseball, the 2006 Florida State Champion. "This will be a tough tournament this year as has been the tourneys in the past," said Nelson on Saturday. Once again it will come down to pitching and who makes the fewest mistakes. We are playing good baseball right now and if our youngsters can shake the tournament "butterflies" on the mound we will have a chance. If we don't it will be a short tournament for us"