Crowe hurls Clippers past rival Lincoln
Lefty throws under 80 pitches in complete game
LINCOLN — When the Cumberland baseball made seven errors behind senior Nick Crowe last month against East Providence, Crowe still only gave up two runs and had his team in position to pick up a win.
But, when they play a clean defensive game behind the lefty, the Clippers are very tough to beat.
Wednesday afternoon in their first league meeting with Lincoln since the 2015 Division I semifinals, the Clippers played superb defense behind Crowe and they returned home from Chet Nichols field with a rivalry win.
Crowe carried a shutout into the seventh inning and settled for a four-hitter in fewer than 80 pitches, while the Clippers scored twice in the first and fifth innings in a 5-1 Division I victory.
“It makes it a whole lot easier when we’re playing defense like that,” Crowe said. “When they’re making the plays and everything is going according to plan, it should all work out. I try to keep my pitch count low and I try to keep the hitters off balance. I was moving the ball outside and inside and I threw a couple of specialty pitches.”
“First-pitch strikes and getting ahead of hitters and almost enticing them to swing at that first pitch,” Cumberland coach Andy Tuetken said. “We stress with our pitchers to throw firstpitch strikes and he did a great job today. This is excellent because Lincoln is a well-balanced team and Nick did an excellent job. The defense was great. It was a good, complete game.”
Lincoln (5-7 Division I) came into the game as one of the hottest teams in the division, having won three of its previous four contests behind the pitching of senior Sean Doris and junior Dominic Cunha. Doris started Wednesday’s game, but he only pitched 4.1 innings and allowed eight hits and four earned runs.
Offensively, the Lions only put two men on base against Crowe twice. In the first inning, Tyler McNulty (walk) and Doris (single) reached base with one out, but were stranded after a strikeout and a fly out. In the seventh, Noah Duquette and Blake Zaniol both hit oneout singles to help break up the shutout.
“We were hitting the ball hard right at people, but then we’re getting frustrated,” Lincoln coach Andy Hallam said. “We have to throw away things that happen in the game and we’re not doing that. I thought Sean pitched well and mixed it up, but we didn’t score any runs for him.”
Cumberland (7-4 Division I) has now won two straight contests after losing a pair of games. The Clippers will face another difficult test Thursday afternoon when Austin Cabral takes the mound against a Toll Gate team fresh off of a win over La Salle Wednesday.
Clipper ace Zach Fogell, who would’ve been in line for the start, is still recovering from a bone bruise he suffered last week against Moses Brown.
“He’s going to be back real soon,” Tuetken said. “He’s in the rest-up mode and we’re just waiting for that final word for him to come back. We’ve had two straight good wins, but you’re only as good as the game you’re going to play.”
Doris, who shut out Coventry in his previous start, ran into trouble before recording an out. Sophomores Addison Kopack and Nick Croteau started the game with singles. After a fly ball moved both runners into scoring position, Kopack scored on a sacrifice fly by sophomore Reuben Hancock and Croteau scored on a Drew Szafranski single.
That was more than enough support for Crowe, who walked two of the first seven batters he faced and then he faced just two threeball counts against the final 19 Lion batters he faced.
“I don’t know if it was the mound, but it was a learning curve kind of thing to start the game,” Crowe said. “Walking people in the early innings is not like me, so I just settled in and figured it out.”
No. 9 hitter Adam Bertherman scored an unearned run in the fourth inning before the Clippers knocked Doris from the game in the fifth. Joe Molis (walk) and Hancock (double) reached scoring position with no outs. Molis scored on an error and sophomore Joe Leonard scored Hancock with a single past the draw in infield.
“We got hits when we needed to, we got defense and the guys on the mound did the job,” Tuetken said. “Mid-year, to have a win like this is big.”
The Lions advanced their first runner to third base with one out in the seventh when Duquette and Zaniol singled and advanced into scoring position with one out on a wild pitch. Catcher Connor Benbenek grounded out to Croteau to end the shutout.
The Lions visit Cranston West Saturday at 1 p.m.
“We throw the ball well, but we just have to come together as a team,” Hallam said. “We have to stop waiting for someone to bail us out and do it ourselves. This is a young team and you’re going to have ups and downs. We just have to put it all together.”