In Tightly Fought Contest, Engineers Fall Short of Tottenville at Home, 5-3

4/10/25

From Coach Nardiello: Woulda coulda shoulda! Tech loses opportunity to upset Tottenville at Parade Grounds 2 behind Silas Hubbell’s gutty pitching performance. To a man, our Engineers felt a good kind of frustration after the game. They played well-enough to beat most teams but walked off on the losing end of a 5-3 score. Tottenville will pressure a defense if you put them on base, and give them extra outs or runs. Our Engineers did give away two runs early, and then made several more mistakes in the field that led to prolonged innings behind our starting pitcher.

Silas got the surprise call after a scheduled starter was late to the 4pm game-time, owing to an AP exam that went long, the type of challenge our Brooklyn Tech ballplayers routinely face. Dealing with the weather (periodic rainouts and sodden fields) and permits (our game was moved up a day and to PG1) can be daunting enough. But our players face other hurdles as well, since academics always come first at Tech (unlike many programs, whose players were on the field as early as 1pm). But today, Silas was up to the challenge–damn the torpedoes!–navigating the Tottenville lineup and overcast chill and rain-drops, and a bunch of miscues by his defense. He never showed emotion and never gave up demonstrating outstanding awareness and control (4.2 IP, 6H, 3R/2ER, BB, 3K).

Coach Joe spent the first few innings reacting to what Silas was battling through. Our Engineers let an easy pop-up fall in the infield, threw a ball into LF, didn’t throw a runner out on a dropped third strike, and moved out of position on a few grounders (turning outs into hits). These lapses amounted to the three runs that the Pirates scored early. With some teams, you can get over and past minor miscues, but against the very good teams? They’ll capitalize and turn them into game-changing opportunities.

Throughout each inning, we felt “we were better than this,” and just did not give up or give in. And slowly, things got better. On offense, the Engineers pressured the Tottenville ace each inning, with Trevor Nieuwenhuis (2R, 3B, BB, SB) and Jake Rapoport (2-2, BB, 2 RBI, 2B) threatening each time they stepped to the plate. Our team battled back, and tied the game 3-3 in the bottom the 5th inning, as the light rain stopped. We did make two base-running miscues which may have cost our team a few runs, but to a man the Engineers believed they’d have the momentum to win.

In the final 2 innings, Tottenville was able to take a few bases-on-balls (first two batters of the 6th inning) and turn them into one-run rallies. They tacked on one run in the 6th and another in the 7th inning. Our Engineers again fought back, but hit into a no-out double-play with two runners on-base; and later, with two outs, too aggressively tried to score a run on a wild pitch (on Field 2, where the backstop is only 15 feet away from the plate).

But the energy was there. The will was there. The intensity was present, up and down the batting order. The full team was into this, and wanted it. It felt almost like a playoff game. And then, just like that, it ended. Tough loss. Good game, but they felt they should have played better.

Tip your cap to Tottenville, because they know how to win. We’re still making things a little too tough for the smooth completion of innings, and getting three outs as soon as possible.

At the midway point of this 2025 season, there are many positives to take away.

But today? They believed they had them – and could have tilted this. Chances to beat one of NYC’s perennial top teams escaped, and the Engineers fell shy of playing the kind of game we needed to close it out. To be better, we have to improve from start to finish.

Lessons still learned.