Timon Takes Down Red Raiders, Advances to Semifinal

The fifth-seeded Bishop Timon-St. Jude Tigers are headed to the Georgetown Cup semifinal after defeating the fourth-seeded St. Francis Red Raiders on Saturday by a score of 2-0.

The win by the Tigers was locked down by a combination of timely hitting and sturdy pitching from Sean Hayes, who pitched a complete game shutout with nine strikeouts.

“The big thing for me was establishing my fastball early,” Hayes said. “When I’m able to do that, I can work in my off-speed pitches whenever I need to and keep opposing hitters off-balance.

“I’ve played with and against a lot of the guys in this league and on Timon, so I know what they can do quite well. My plan of attack was basically to attack them with the fastball and see if they can hit the off-speed stuff.”

For the most part, the Red Raiders weren’t able to hit the off-speed stuff. Hayes was able to mix three different types of pitches – a curveball, a slider and a circle-changeup – into his repertoire already consisting of a four-seam fastball and a cutter to not allow the opposition to ever threaten the Tigers all afternoon.

“I felt good out there,” Hayes said. “Some of the big pitches for me out there today were the cutter and slider. The cutter’s a little bit harder and has less of a break, but the slider kind of swoops around. They look the same when they’re coming out of my hand but they really keep other hitters off-balance. I feel like that really helped our team out a lot today.”

Of course, Hayes’ performance on the mound would have gone for naught if his teammates weren’t able to give him any run support. The Tigers, to their credit, managed to do just that as Jake Reid and James Fino each recorded RBI singles off of Red Raiders pitcher Mike Hartman midway through the game to stake out a lead that they would never relinquish.

“We did pretty well at the plate too,” Hayes said. “Mike’s a great pitcher too, I’m not going to take anything away from him. He’s really amazing, and the last time we faced him he threw a great game against us. But I feel like we kind of changed our mindset coming into today. We wanted to be more aggressive early in the pitch counts, and we were able to get some hits off of him and it helped us come out on top today.”

In order to advance to the final the Tigers will need to get past the St. Joe’s Marauders, and while they boast a strong lineup Hayes said that the Tigers won’t be intimidated going into their upcoming showdown.

“We just need to stay focused,” Hayes said. “That’s been our biggest thing this year – just staying focused and keep being hungry. St. Joe’s is a great team, but I really think we can compete with them. I’m sure it will be a fun matchup.”