West Orange HS baseball team defeats Bloomfield to advance to North Jersey Section 1 Group 4 tournament quarterfinals

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WEST ORANGE – Andrew Scholz pitched a two-hit complete game with four strikeouts and went 2-for-3 with two RBI to lead the fourth-seeded West Orange High School varsity baseball team to a 3-2 home win over 13th-seeded Bloomfield in the first round of the state North Jersey Section 1, Group 4 tournament on May 23.

Doug Hughes went 2-for-2 with a double, RBI, a walk and a run scored for the Mountaineers, who won their fifth straight game to improve to a 16-5 record.

WOHS will host fifth-seeded Montclair in the quarterfinals on May 26. If the Mountaineers win, they will play the winner between top-seeded Morristown and No. 8 seed Passaic in the semifinals on May 31. The final is June 3. WOHS lost to Montclair, 8-4, May 4, in a Super Essex Conference non-division game at home.

In earlier action, Scholz fired a five-inning complete game with four strikeouts, allowing one unearned run on two hits and two walks, and and went 2-for-3 with three RBI and a run scored at the plate in a 15-1 victory over Newark East Side at the Ironbound Recreation Center in Newark on May 16. Hughes went 4-for-4 with three RBI and three runs scored; Robert Parisi was 2-for-3 with three RBI and three runs and Christopher Walker scored three runs.

Scholtz hit an RBI sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh inning to lift the Mountaineers to a 3-2 walk-off win over Columbia on May 18 at home in a SEC-Liberty Division game. Liam White pitched a complete game, allowing two runs on four hits  with four strikeouts. At the plate, White went 4-for-4 with a home run, two runs scored and two RBI. Scholz and Hughes also doubled; and Tyree Bradley had two hits.

Paul Casolaro and Christopher Walker combined on a four-hit shutout in the 5-0 home win over West Essex on May 19 in a division game. Hughes had two hits and two RBI; Scholz had two hits and an RBI and White had two hits.