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Errors Cost SteepleCats in Series Opener

August 7, 2015 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
North Adams SteepleCats News Release


North Adams SteepleCats on the Mound
North Adams SteepleCats on the Mound
(North Adams SteepleCats)

MONTPELIER, VT -- It's not every game where you can pinpoint the moment where momentum shifts in a seemingly insurmountable fashion. In Game One of the NECBL Northern Division Championship Series, it was a glaring seventh inning that was the difference.

In the seventh inning North Adams trailed by two runs and loaded the bases with one out. But a misstep on the basepaths led to a double play off the bat of Parker Perez and in the home half of the inning Vermont tacked on three unearned runs to pull away with a 7-3 win Thursday night at Recreation Field. Vermont now holds a 1-0 series lead as the scene shifts to Joe Wolfe Field for Game Two Friday night.

It's the third time in the last four games the SteepleCats are fighting for their playoff lives. After dropping the series opener to Sanford in the Divisional Semifinals the SteepleCats rallied for two extra-inning wins to advance to the Divisional Finals for just the third time in team history. Now, they need a win to force a decisive Game Three in Vermont Saturday night.

North Adams scored first in all three games against Sanford, but Vermont did the early damage Thursday night.

Jack Parenty led off the third inning with a ground-ball single, advanced to second on a balk then stole third. The throw from Rob Calabrese (Illinois-Chicago) skipped down the left-field line and allowed Parenty to trot home with the game's first run - the first of five unearned runs the SteepleCats would surrender in the game.

Parenty would do it all himself again in the fifth with a two-out solo home run, tucked just inside the left field foul pole.

Tom Cosgrove, the Mountaineers starter, had been sensational through five innings. He allowed just two base runners, one single and one walk, through his first five frames before North Adams finally got to him in the sixth. Michael Babb picked up his fifth hit of the playoffs, a one-out single, and later came in to score on a single from Hunter Lee.

It could've been a big inning for North Adams too. With Cosgrove visibly tiring, the next batter, Joe DeLuca, hit a rocket one-hopper to the left side. But short stop Isaiah Pasteur made a ridiculous back-handed diving stop in the hole and threw him out at first, robbing DeLuca and getting Cosgrove through what proved to be his final inning of work.

Cosgrove got the win, his first of the postseason, while Robby Buffis took the loss for North Adams. Buffis battled through 6+ innings of work, surrendering four runs - two earned - on six hits while striking out five Mountaineers.

"I just wanted to put my team in a position to win and go as long into the game as I could," Buffis said after the game.

After the SteepleCats failed to score in the seventh, Buffis - who had already thrown 113 pitches - came back out for the home half, but surrendered a leadoff double to Austin Clemons and North Adams went to Derek Baker out of the bullpen.

Baker walked Parenty and Nick Ruppert came to the plate looking to sacrifice bunt. Jim Haley, making his fifth start of his career at third base, underthrew second baseman Hunter Lee, who was covering first on the wheel play, and allowed both runners to score as the ball rattled around the right-field bullpen. Ruppert would score on a two-out single by Pasteur later in the inning - the third unearned run of the frame - to open up a 6-1 lead that North Adams wouldn't recover from.

In the eighth, Babb made his first pitching appearance of the season. He struck out the first batter he faced before a walk to Austin Taylor, who stole second and advanced to third on a groundout. With two outs in the inning Babb picked up a strikeout, but the ball squibbed through the legs of Calabrese and Clemons reached on the dropped third strike. It would have been the third out of the inning, instead Taylor came home to score as Clemons reached and the Mountaineers put the icing on the cake.

But just as North Adams has done all season, they battled to the bitter end - getting the tying run to the on-deck circle in the ninth.

After back-to-back groundouts to start the inning, Calabrese was hit by a pitch and Haley walked. Joe Burns then lofted a single to left, loading the bases for Parker Perez. It was his second bases-loaded opportunity of the game, after the double play in the seventh, and this time he delivered a two-run single to get North Adams back within four. But Vermont was able to get Babb to ground out to end the game and seal the Game One victory.

North Adams returns to Joe Wolfe Field for another elimination game Friday night at 6:30pm. Gates will open at 5:30pm and the game broadcast will be available online, starting at 6:15pm, with broadcaster Jake Levy on the NECBL Broadcast Network.




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North Adams SteepleCats on the Mound
North Adams SteepleCats on the Mound
   



New England Collegiate Baseball League Stories from August 7, 2015


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