AUBURN – St. Dom’s has played crisper baseball in what is to this point has been an unbeaten season, but since the Saints are embarking on a stretch of three games in three days and four in six, they’re not going to be picky.
The Saints committed four errors, but their potent offense and a gutty pitching effort from Brent Cary more than made up for the mistakes in a 6-3 win over North Yarmouth Academy Monday.
“We’re awfully spoiled. We really are,” said Saints coach Bob Blackman. “We’re looking for perfection and we forget sometimes. We’re 9-0 now and we want to play like we’re 9-0 for a reason. Sometimes we don’t do that, but they’re kids.”
Cary fanned eight, walked three and gave up five hits and two earned runs in six innings. He had to pitch his way out of trouble several times and did so by baffling the bottom of NYA’s order with his curve ball.
“The curve ball helped out a lot,” said Cary, who picked up his fourth win of the season in his second start. “They were catching on to the fastball real fast and it’s good to have a pitch that they’ll bail out on.”
Jon Rutt led the Saints’ offense with a pair of doubles. Cary and Justin Fongemie also stroked a pair of hits. Several more Saints could have joined them in the multi-hit column. They hit the ball hard off NYA starter George Burkett, but several of the balls were hit right at someone, particularly shortstop Tim DeLuca.
“We thought we hit the ball well. We probably hit it to their No. 1 guy. I mean, DeLuca made every play at him,” Blackman said. “Defensively, we can play a little better.”
A defensive mistake got NYA (5-4) on the board first in the first inning. Lenny Pierce (3-for-4) led off with a single, stole second, then scored on an errant throw by Fongemie. Cary then walked the next two batters to load the bases, but caught Troy Maybury looking at a curve ball to avoid further damage.
“Both of his starts, Brent’s had trouble in that first inning. He doesn’t seem to have that pop on his fastball and doesn’t locate his curve well enough in that first inning. But as the game goes on, he finds himself and gets a little bit more control of what he’s doing,” Blackman said.
Cary found his rhythm and struck out the side in the second. The defense helped him out in the third when left fielder Jake Albert backed up an errant thrown to third and threw out Duncan Briggs at the plate.
The Saints took their first lead in the third on John Emerson’s two-run single. Cary got himself out of a two-on, none-out jam in the fourth by striking out the bottom three of the Panthers’ order, but NYA was able to tie it in the fifth.
St. Dom’s regained the lead for good with a four-run bottom of the fifth. With Mike Carpenter on second, Rutt roped a double to left-center to make it 3-2, then moved up to third on a ground out and scored on pinch hitter Andy Allen’s squeeze bunt. Allen reached safely because no one covered first and came around to score on Fongemie’s second hit. Cary then singled to chase Burkett, and Moreau capped the rally by driving home Fongemie with a sacrifice fly to right off reliever Shaun Lynch to make it 6-2.
NYA cut it to 6-3 on Pierce’s infield single in the sixth. That also put the tying runs on base with two outs, but Cary wiggled his way out of it again by getting Briggs to ground out to him.
Brady Blackman gave up a leadoff double to DeLuca in the seventh but shut the door from there to earn his third save of the season.
Comments are no longer available on this story