Baseball: Pitching powers Tri-Cape to Carpenter Cup win

By Phil Anastasia

It began with Mike Shawaryn firing 90 mph fastballs and ended with Bryan Dobzanski firing 92 mph fastballs.

Power pitching carried Tri-Cape to an 9-8 victory over Berks County on Tuesday in the first round of the 28th annual Carpenter Cup Classic at Richie Ashburn Field in FDR Park.

"We feel like we have three 'lights-out' pitchers," said Tri-Cape manager D.J. Gore, referring to Shawaryn and Dobzanski as well as John Murphy. "We like those matchups."

Shawaryn, a Gloucester Catholic senior, worked the first three innings as Tri-Cape advanced to Friday afternoon's second-round game against Suburban One League American/Continental.

The Maryland-bound athlete allowed a pair of bloop singles and struck out six.

Murphy, a Gloucester Catholic sophomore, pitched the eighth inning. He allowed an unearned run on one hit and struck out two.

Dobzanski, a Delsea junior, closed the game with a scoreless ninth, allowing an infield single and striking out one. He lit up the scouts' radar guns behind home plate.

"It was an honor to play with so many great players," Dobzanski said. "It was a close game. I knew I had to hit my spots."

Millville junior Kyle Cox and Pennsville junior Drew Burdsall delivered back-to-back, two-out RBI doubles and Atlantic City senior Jon Bruccoleri added an RBI single as Tri-Cape rallied from a 7-6 deficit with three runs in the bottom of the seventh.

St. Augustine Prep seniors Christian Adorno (two-run triple), Barry Buchowski (RBI single) and Mike Elfreth (two-run single) drove in five runs in the middle innings for Tri-Cape.

Pitching was the key for the team comprised of players from the Tri-County and Cape-Atlantic conferences.

Just four of Berk County's runs were earned as Tri-Cape committed five errors. Berks County had 12 hits, but seven of them were either bloopers or never left the infield.

Tri-Cape pitchers, which included GCIT's Jake Danner, Pennsville's Luke Westfield, Delsea's Nick Freijomil and Ocean City's Beau Hall, who got the win, combined for 17 strikeouts.

Dobzanski was an undefeated state champion wrestler at 220 pounds and also was a key member of Delsea's 11-1 South Jersey champion football team in the fall.

But the 6-4, 220-pound athlete knows baseball is his sport of the future. With a fastball that consistently touches 92 mph on radar guns and reached 94 mph last week , Dobzanksi has been drawing heavy interest from college and professional scouts.

Dobzanski said he will play this summer for the New Jersey Niners, a travel team based at Diamond Nation. He said he likely will by-pass football to continue to pitch in the fall although he plans to wrestle in the winter.

"I have to work on my mechanics, develop secondary pitches," Dobzanski said. "I'm pretty much set on baseball for college. That's the money maker."

Dobzanski said he learned early in the game that he likely would be serving as the team's closer, with Murphy in the set-up role.

"I got up at 6:30," Dobzanski said with a laugh after the game that started at 9 a.m. "I told them they could have let me know (he was closing) and I could have driven over here two hours later."

Berks County 000 033 110 -- 8 12 3

Tri Cape 003 030 30x -- 9 15 5

WP: Beau Hall. LP: Tyler Sassaman.

2B: BC-Hunter Wysocki; TC-Kyle Cox, Drew Burdsall.

3B: TC-Christian Adorno.

Contact Phil Anastasia at panastasia@phillynews.com. Follow @PhilAnastasia on Twitter.