by Andrew Brooks (Living the Dream Blog)
Interviews by Andrew Brooks : Coach Roberts
June 21, 2011
Both teams enjoyed quality games by their respective starters. Harwich Mariner Tanner Perkins (Western Kentucky) induced a plethora of groundballs, keeping the speedy Kettleers at bay. Perkins threw 6 2/3 innings of scoreless ball only giving up five hits, walking one, and striking out one.“He’s a groundball machine,” said Harwich Coach Steve Angler praising his starter. “He throw’s strikes, pounds the strike zone; that’s the second quality outing he has had for us.”
Cotuit Starter R.J. Fondon (FIU) also threw a respectable game. As the game progressed, he got comfortable throwing his change up in two strike counts trying to get the batters to go fishing, and he was successful. He struck out five Mariners while going six innings, allowing five hits, two walks, and only one earned run.
“Got a really good outing by R.J. today.” Coach Roberts explained that he took him out because of a cut on his throwing hand. “His finger spilt open on him, and he would have gone one more inning, and then we would have gone to Wahl, but I didn’t want him to miss his next start.”
The one earned run he gave up was a Luke Voit (Missouri State) blast in the 5th inning. Voit lead off the inning and he was looking fastball all the way.
“I figured he was going to throw me another fastball inside, so I was sitting that, and… so long.”
In the 7th, Cotuit tied the game up on an Alex Yarbrough (Ole Miss) RBI. Kevin Mager (Rollins College) had stolen third and then was hit home by Yarbrough.
The wheels began to come off for Cotuit in the bottom half of the inning. Steve Weber (Eastern Michigan) recorded a quick out and then gave up a screaming double to Billy Burns (Mercer). Roberts then subbed Weber for Paul Snieder (Northwestern). Snieder then intentionally walked Ronnie Richardson (UCF) to try and induce a double play. Darrell Sweeny made Cotuit pay by hitting the ball just out of the reach of the diving Cotuit second basemen Micah Johnson (Indiana). Burns scored on the play making it 2-1.
The inning looked like it was going to be over when Jabari Henry (FIU) hit a groundball to short, but Kevin Mager’s throw was a tad low, and Cody Stubbs (Walters State) couldn’t make the catch. The ball his off of Stubb’s glove and it sailed past him. Sweeny and Richardson who were both running on two outs scored on the play.
In the 8th inning, Daniel Stallsmith got two quick outs, and made an extremely athletic dive off a Richardson “excuse me” pop fly that landed in between the pitcher’s mound and home plate. Stallsmith just barely over jumped the ball. He later gave up two runs on a Darnell Sweeny triple.
Sweeny went 3-4 on the day with 3 RBI’s.
Coach Roberts is looking to take on the infield issue head on.
“We’ve got to cure our infield defensive struggles if we are going to be one of the better teams in the league.”
Cotuit will take on Hyannis tomorrow at McKeon Field. The game will be at 7 PM. Bring your umbrellas, it may be showering on and off.