Pioneers hold back Guards

Jeff Tully

There was no taunting, no trash-talking and no ill will in a

cross-town rivalry baseball game between Providence and

Bellarmine-Jefferson highs.

Pioneer Coach Blaine Anderson and his Guard counterpart -- Coach

Hector Perez -- saw to it their players concentrated on a friendly,

clean nonleague game, and didn’t give in to riling up their

opponents.

In a game filled with a lot of hits, and a lot of errors,

Providence held off a pesky young Bell-Jeff team Monday and ran their

way to a 12-10 victory at Brace Canyon Park.

“This is the kind of rivalry game we want to play,” said Anderson,

whose team is 3-3-1. “This is just a nice game for the two smaller

teams in the city.

“I think Hector Perez is doing a great job at Bell-Jeff. He has

that program heading in the right direction.”

Perez, a hometown boy who played and coached at Burroughs, said

the rivalry between the area’s two Catholic school is anything but

venomous.

“We like to play Providence because so many of our kids know their

kids,” he said. “In the summer, we have even combined players from

both schools to make a team.”

Along with 14 hits, the Pioneers ran Bell-Jeff (0-4) crazy, as

Providence had 13 stolen bases -- including two of home plate.

Every starting Pioneer got on base, and seven of the nine had at

least one stolen base.

“We have pretty good team speed, and we will run if we get the

chance,” Anderson said.

Sean Kaloostian led the ground attack, going three for four with a

double and three stolen bases. Teammates Andrew Franco, Chris Acosta

and R.J. Matta had two hits each.

Although Pioneer Justin Nepomuceno had just one hit, he walked

three times, scored three runs and had three stolen bases.

Bell-Jeff was paced by Ronnie Rhoner and Ryan Vargas, who had two

hits each.

After the Guards jumped out to a 4-1 lead after two innings, the

Pioneers scored 11 straight runs to push back Bell-Jeff. However,

Bell-Jeff scored five runs in the sixth inning to cut the lead to

three.

Bell-Jeff pushed across one run in the bottom of the seventh and

had the winning run at the plate. However, the Pioneers ended the

threat.

Providence starter Paul Paolone (3-2) went 6 2/3 innings, giving

up seven hits and nine runs to earn the victory.

The teams combined for 12 errors.