Thunderbolts stymie Clippers
Canales outduels Wright to drop Cumberland to 1-4
CUMBERLAND — The Cumberland baseball team was blanked by Cranston East 2-0 in a Division I contest on Sunday afternoon at Bentley Field. Both of the East runs were scored on errors. The Clippers fell victim to ’Bolts senior ace, Gio Canales, who struck out 11 batters and gave up just two hits over 6.2 innings.
Cumberland got six innings from its lefty ace Brendan Wright, who struck out seven.
“Gio Canales, what a great pitcher he is,” Cumberland coach Andy Tuetken said. “He had everything working. He was locating his off-speeds and his fastball was painting the corners. So, you’ve got to tip your cap to a good performance like that.”
Tuetken then gave credit to his starting pitcher, who hung with Canales all afternoon.
“Brendan Wright matched him,” Tuetken said. “Inning by inning, those two were just going at it and attacking the zone. And a few of our mishaps, they took advantage of, and in a game like this, that’s all that matters.”
East got its first run in the top of the third when freshman Jimmy Lombert, who was pinch running, scored from second, after a miscue at first base.
The ’Bolts second run came home after Chris Torres, a sophomore, stole third base, which caused Ben Fogell, Cumberland’s junior catcher, to throw over, and that resulted in an error, and allowed Torres to score, making it 2-0.
“I think that shows how good Gio really is,” Tuetken said. “Because he had our batters off-balance all day. And we had some innings where we had guys in scoring position, but we just couldn’t capitalize on that.”
“Good swings all day,” Tuetken added. “It’s just when we had those guys in scoring position, and not being able to get them in, during a pitchers’ duel like this, if you can’t do that, you’re not going to come out on top.”
The Clippers squandered a chance to rally in the bottom of the seventh with two down, when East pulled Canales at 112 pitches in favor of senior relief pitcher Quinn Lanigan.
Cumberland senior Nick Croteau greeted Lanigan with a double to deep center before East second baseman Noah Rennick dropped a routine ground ball, which put runners at the corners.
Alas, with a full count, Lanigan struck out senior Addison Kopack to end the game.
With the defeat, Cumberland falls to 1-4 on the season and travels to Cranston Stadium on Wednesday to play the Thunderbolts (2-3) again at 4 pm.