Pittston Area’s Jeremy Cawley was named Most Valuable Player of the third annual 570 Sports Show Baseball All-Star Game
Tom Robinson / Sunday Dispatch
SCRANTON – Pittston Area’s Jeremy Cawley took his responsibilities as lead-off hitter seriously Friday.
Cawley made sure Luzerne got off to a fast start on the way to 4-2 victory over Lackawanna in the third annual 570 Sports Show Baseball All-Star Game at Connell Park.
The game featured recent graduates and matched players from the Wyoming Valley Conference against those from the Lackawanna League.
Cawley earned Most Valuable Player honors by combining a strong defensive game as the starting shortstop with scoring the first run, driving in the second and scoring the third. He finished 2-for-4 with three stolen bases.
“I was just trying to get on base and show the speed off a little bit,” Cawley said.
Cawley singled as the game’s first batter. He took second on a groundout, stole third and scored on a single by Pittston Area teammate Troy Davis.
“I wanted to get on the board first,” Cawley said. “First at-bat, I was just looking to get the game started with a single. … They always say hitting is contagious.
“I think it worked out in the long run.”
After the Davis RBI single, Honesdale’s Joe Curreri retired the next seven batters, four of them by strikeout.
The game featured some modified rules, such as no walks and 12-man batting orders.
Crestwood’s Nick Miscavage, the last hitter in the batting order doubled to start the fourth with the WVC team still leading, 1-0, then stole third with Cawley at the plate.
“I saw Miscavage was at third,” Cawley said. “I had to get him in and help the team out.”
A single by Cawley accomplished that and he followed it up with two more stolen bases before scoring on a single by Joe Peters from Dallas.
Cawley, who is headed to play National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II baseball at Bloomsburg University, has kept sharp since the end of the high school season. The all-star game put him on the field for a fifth straight day, including four games with the first-place Greater Pittston Senior American Legion team.
“We’re having a great season,” Cawley said.
Cawley and Davis gave Pittston Area two of the first four players in the batting order and Wyoming Area’s Jack Mathis batted fifth. Pittston Area’s Nick Cerasaro batted eighth.
Davis started in right field and was 1-for-3 with the first-inning RBI.
Cerasaro was 0-for-1 at the plate and was one of two Luzerne pitchers to throw two innings. Working the sixth and seventh innings of the nine-inning game with a 4-1 lead to protect, Cerasaro retired the first five batters he faced. After allowing a single, he finished up with his second strikeout.
Mathis started at second base and went 0-for-3.
Peters doubled twice in the win, Miscavage also had two hits and Nanticoke’s Justin Spencer struck out three while pitching the first two innings.
“It was just a great day with the boys,” Cawley said. “I know most of these guys from playing travel all through seventh and eighth grade and high school. I know all the guys over on the other side and on this team. It was nice finally being teammates with some of them.
“They really tore it up against us on the field in the regular season, so having them on our side was a big relief.”
