Schuylerville moves to 6-0 on season with 7-0 win
After playing six games in seven days, Schuylerville had everything come together with a beautiful day, solid hitting and solid pitching to take the 7-0 win over Broadalbin-Perth. The team is now 6-0 on the season.
Schuylerville head coach Darrin Renner said the youth of his team helped them stay ready to play so many games, but also makes it so they have a lot to learn.
“We played six games in the last seven days and the nice thing is I have a very young team, only one senior on this team,” Renner said. “The kids have been bringing intensity every time and we came out with intensity again today. Everything’s a learning curve with these guys and we kind of faded as the game went on. We are working on those kinds of things to be intense all the time and make sure we come out like we did in the first inning, running the bases good, putting pressure on the other team.”
Renner said that his team is learning as the season goes and becoming a strong unit.
“I am proud of these guys,” Renner said. “These guys have come out and we have been bringing it to people and putting them in uncomfortable positions and make them make mistakes, which resulted in a 6-0 start, can’t complain about that.”
The Black Horses came out in the bottom of the first inning to put up three runs led by Paul Harshbarger and Stratton Sherman getting timely hits to put numbers up on the board. The Black Horses managed one more run in the fourth and three more in the fifth.
Carson Dunkel started for Schuylerville and had a strong performance with some hiccups, including the five walks he gave up, but he held the Patriots to zero runs and got himself out of a jam in the top of the sixth.
He walked a couple batters to get the bases loaded and then got the next three batters to fly out and strikeout to get out of the inning unscathed.
Renner said Dunkel came in last season and became better as the year progressed.
“Carson was, last year, a sophomore on varsity,” Renner said. “He is a junior this year. Last year, when he came out early in the year, he was trying to do too much, a lot of times he was overthrowing, not
hitting his spots, not letting his off speeds work for him and he grew as the season went on last year, by the end of the season he was our No. 2 pitcher, he was throwing fantastic, threw a great sectional game for us.”
Renner said that his season, Dunkel is slowly learning how to be effect and work games without so many walks.
“Carson is coming along, Carson is going to get better,” Renner said. “His command has been off a little bit, I think he walked five guys today and that’s not him. He is a guy, who commands the plate and does well with all four of his pitches, but we are still trying to get the off-speed stuff to come around and once that comes around, I expect great things from his this year.”
The team had a hard fought game and was able to come out on top behind Dunkel’s six strong innings and timely hitting that gave him a comfortable lead.
Renner said his team is ready to go far this season.
“We have a team of fighters,” Renner said. “We are a young team. Like I said one senior, a few freshmen, three of four sophomores starting, but they don’t play like that right now. Defensively we have been really good, our base running I would put up against anybody’s.
The hitting comes along as the season goes on; we have had some great games and some not so great ones. I think we have a lot of potential to be successful this year.”