Broncos get down and dirty
Burrillville fights hard for playoff position
BURRILLVILLE — The formula for a victory is very simple for the Burrillville baseball team this season – send senior Keith Doucette to the Eccleston Field mound.
Desperately needing a victory to resuscitate their playoff chances, the Broncos sent Doucette to the Eccleston Field mound Friday against talented Tolman and the for- mula worked again.
Doucette wasn’t at his best, but he battled his way through four innings just four days after throwing over 100 pitches in a defeat to two-time defending Division II champion Ponaganset. The Broncos received three RBIs and two runs scored from junior Ryan Lockwood and catcher Tyler Richards scored four runs in a 9-5 home win over the Tigers.
“The defense behind me has been great all season and they’ve made the plays,” Doucette said after allowing seven hits and a run along with five strikeouts. “All I needed to do was throw strikes and let them do the work. I felt fine today. I’ve thrown over 100 before and come back a few days later, I’m fine.”
“All of the games we’ve won have been at home, we just can’t pull it together on the road,” Lockwood said after hitting a double and a triple against starter Kyle Depatie. “Keith’s pitched every home game and he’s our ace, so that helps. We need to put it together next week to make the playoffs.”
Tolman (8-8 Division II) made the long trip home thinking about all the ways the game could’ve been different if the Tigers didn’t strand 14 base runners or commit four errors which led to three unearned runs early in the contest.
Despite all the mistakes, the Tigers had the game-tying run at the plate with two outs in the seventh inning. Junior Izaiah Rivera, who has been Tolman’s best player all season, grounded out with the bases loaded. Rivera finished the afternoon with two hits, two RBIs and a run scored, while Depatie scored a pair of runs.
“We had a tough day today, a tough day,” Tolman coach Theo Murray said. “We made a lot of mistakes. We had some issues with home plate on some squeezes we tried to run and we had some other base running issues that cost us. This was a tough day, that’s for sure.”
While Murray feels the Tigers need to win one of their two games next week to finish in the top 12 and secure a Division II playoff spot, Burrillville (6-9 Division II) likely needs to win all three games next week to reach the playoffs, starting with Monday’s game against Prout in Wakefield. The Broncos will send Doucette to the mound against first-place Chariho Tuesday and Smithfield comes to Eccleston Thursday.
“We’ll take this one. The season we’ve been having, we’re usually on the other side of games like this one,” Burrillville coach Brian Loynds said. “The kids are working hard. We need to win out next week, but that’s been our mindset from the first game of the season. The philosophy hasn’t changed.”
Richards scored the game’s opening run in the first inning on a Lockwood double against Depatie and then he scored again in the second when a pair of Tolman errors with two outs brought Lockwood to the plate with a pair of runners on base. The three-sport standout smashed a 1-2 fastball over Noel Hernandez’ head in center for a two-run triple.
“I was sitting fastball because I knew he had a good curveball,” Lockwood said. “He grooved one down the plate right where I wanted it. I wish we did have a fence because I got one out last week against Narragansett.”
Rivera drove in Depatie in the third to cut the deficit to two, but the Tigers wasted a bases-loaded situation in the fourth when Depatie grounded into a 3-2 double play.
Depatie allowed four hits and just two earned runs in four innings of work.
“Kyle was doing all right,” Murray said. “That kid 9 over there, Lockwood, he was just crushing the ball. It wasn’t that Kyle was throwing bad pitches, you just have to tip your hat to him for crushing two balls. We made Kyle throw a few too many pitches with the mistakes we made.”
Tolman tied the game on runs by Ethan Bernardo and Rivera in the fifth, but the hosts scored twice in the fifth and four times in the sixth to secure the win. Jason Cabral had the big hit in the sixth, a two-run single to right off of Bernardo to extend the lead to three.
Burrillville sophomore reliever Nick Langevin picked up the victory after allowing four runs in 2.2 innings of work. Ross Lapierre set down Rivera after allowing a Bernardo RBI single to end the game.
Tolman 001 021 1 – 5 11 4 Burrillville 120 024 x–973
Kyle Depatie, Ethan Bernardo (5) and Jeff LaRose; Keith Doucette, Nick Langevin (5), Ross Lapierre (7) and Tyler Richards. 2B – T, Izaiah Rivera, Justin Klemanchuck; B, Ryan Lockwood, Josh Dearden; 3B – B, Lockwood.