Little Falls, NJ – Aces come and aces go. In college baseball, when you typically have a player at his best for about two years, it's simply a fact of life.

So when Montclair State's CHRIS KEELIN got snapped up by the Philadelphia Phillies in last year's major league draft, coach Norm Schoenig did the only thing he could. He bumped each of his eight pitchers up a spot.

And so far this season, senior GREG BELSON has taken to the No. 1 starter's role as if it was created for him.

The right-hander from Staten Island sparkled in the Red Hawks' home opener at Yogi Berra Stadium on Wednesday, retiring 15 of the first 16 batters to face him and finishing with a four-hit shutout as Montclair State (7-2-1) blanked Allentown, 6-0.
"He's a legit No. 1," Schoenig said. "When he's got his breaking ball working, he is extremely tough to hit."

And Belson's breaking ball was working. He had only five strikeouts, but he kept the Centaurs (7-8) off balance with a tremendous mix of fastballs and curveballs and didn't walk a batter.

"That's my out pitch," he said of his curveball. "What I was trying to do was get ahead with the fastball and make the defense work for me. When I got ahead then I could throw the curveball for a strike."

"He's going to get a lot of people out with his fastball just because his curveball is so good," Schoenig sadi.

That has been the case so far for Belson (2-0). Wednesday's home opener was his first action in more than a week, but he was coming off a tremendous six-hit, complete-game performance in beating Chapman, 9-1, in California. Chapman's lone run came when a batter pulled a fastball inside the foul pole in the ninth inning to break up the shutout.

He wasn't about to let that happened again as he mowed down the Centaurs through the first five innings. The lone hit was a hard grounder through the hole a short with two outs in the first inning. Only two other balls reached the outfield in the first five innings. But left fielder MARC HOUSER corralled the, falling to the ground to pick a fly ball off the turf to end the fourth inning.

"Chris (Keelin) is a tremendous pitcher," said Belson, who retired the side in order in six of the nine innings. "But we have some talent on this staff, and every one of us ready to step up and get us where we want to be, which is the World Series. I like the responsibility."

The Red Hawks played the short game to jump out to a 3-0 lead on starter John Moult. They took a 1-0 lead in the first on a DAVE WURST single, a walk, a double steal, and a sacrifice fly by cleanup batter GEORGE GALLAGHER.

They added two more in the second. FRANK FRANCIA walked and came around from first on a hit-and-run by BRIAN ELLERSON. Ellerson tagged up on Houser's liner to center field and came in on a wild pitch.

"Like I told the players, you don't need 16 hits to score six runs," Schoenig said. "We have good team speed on this club. It's a matter of running the bases and getting the timely hit."