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New Bedford Loses

July 31, 2016 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
New Bedford Bay Sox News Release


After winning their last three games to stamp a place in the postseason, the New Bedford Bay Sox played their ugliest game, committing seven errors in a 12-5 loss to the Danbury Westerners on Sunday night at Paul Walsh Field.

The loss places New Bedford in a tie for third place with Danbury with one game remaining in the regular season. Danbury has the season series with the Bay Sox, which would give them the third seed and a first-round matchup with Newport in the postseason, leaving New Bedford with the tall task of facing Mystic in the playoffs. Mystic has beaten New Bedford in four of the team's six meetings, including a 10-0 blowout win on Wednesday.

The Westerners jumped all over New Bedford starter Jake Stearns (Southern New Hampshire), ripping four hits in the first to take a 4-0 lead. Stearns allowed back-to-back singles to left field to start the frame, then made a nice defensive play on a sacrifice bunt attempt by Paul Rufo, cutting down leadoff hitter Coco Montes at third base. Cleanup man David Villar laced a single to center field to plate the first run, then New Bedford third baseman Robbie Doring (Dayton) misplayed a ground ball with two outs and the bases loaded to allow the second Danbury run to cross the plate. Designated hitter Ryan Nelson drove in two more runs with a single up the middle, which prompted manager Kyle Fernandes to pull Stearns from the mound in this important contest. Stearns was replaced by Austin Cline (Dayton), who struck out Tyler Panno to end the inning. Stearns allowed four runs in 0.2 innings, but only one was earned due to the error by Doring.

The Bay Sox got one run back in the bottom of the first, as Andrew Penner (Los Angeles Valley) scored on a passed ball. Penner reached on a sharp single up the middle, moved to second on a one-out walk to Jakob Goldfarb (Oregon), progressed another 90 feet on a fly ball by Robbie Doring (Dayton) to center, and scored on the passed ball.

Danbury reclaimed their four-run lead in the third on a solo blast from first baseman Shawn Blake, as he crushed the ball over the high fence in right center field. The Westerners put runners on first and second immediately after the homer on a single and the second error from Doring at third. Two batters later, the Westerners scored their sixth run of the game on the second error from Connor Hoover (North Georgia), as the excellent infield defense exhibited in last night's win has vanished.

The Westerners extended their lead to 9-1 in the fourth, as Rufo singled and scored on a double by Villar for the seventh run. Two more errors by the Bay Sox lead to more runs for Danbury, as Penner had a wild throw on a swinging bunt attempt by Blake, and Doring committed error number three by airmailing a throw. Cline allowed five runs in his 3.1 innings of work, but only three were earned, as his teammates committed five errors behind him.

To start the fifth, the Bay Sox placed Justin Jacobsen (Bridgewater State) on the mound to make his first appearance of the year. They also substituted Ryan Rotondo (Maryland Eastern Shore) for Doring at third, as the cleanup hitter in today's lineup was 0-for-2 with three errors in four innings. Jacobsen was solid in relief, tossing three scoreless innings with one strikeout and three hits allowed.

The home team cut the lead to 9-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning, as Hoover drove in Rotondo with an RBI single through the hole between first and second base.

Derrick Pickvet (North Georgia) came in for Jacobsen in the eighth inning, but had a rough start to his outing, walking two batters and allowing two singles before retiring a batter, as Danbury scored their tenth run. Danbury scored two more runs on a single from Tyler Panno, who was the only Westerner hitter that hadn't reached base. Ryan Baldwin (Barry) committed New Bedford's seventh error by misplaying the ball in right, allowing another unearned run to score.

New Bedford took advantage of Danbury placing infielder turned pitcher James Venuto on the mound in the eighth, as Hoover ripped his third hit to acquire his second RBI to make it 12-3. Venuto had walked the first two batters he faced before Hoover's double, which added to his two singles earlier in the ballgame. T.J. Dixon scored on a wild pitch by Billy DeVito for New Bedford's fourth run, and Hoover scored on a groundout by Chandler Debrosse (Central Connecticut State) to make it 12-5 headed to the ninth.

John Sostarich (Sacred Heart) pitched the ninth for the Bay Sox, and allowed a leadoff double to Rufo before retiring the next three batters he faced.

The Bay Sox will close out the regular season by hosting Ocean State on Monday evening. With Danbury's win, both the Bay Sox and the Westerners are now tied at 21-22 and have clinched playoff spots, as they each have the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Waves. Danbury will host first-place Mystic on Monday night, and can clinch third place with a win or New Bedford loss. The playoffs will start on Wednesday night, with New Bedford traveling to either Mystic or Newport for the first game of the best-of-three series.



New England Collegiate Baseball League Stories from July 31, 2016


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