SteepleCats Fall to the Waves on the Road

July 15, 2016 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
North Adams SteepleCats News Release


The North Adams SteepleCats played well for most of the game, but it was a third inning in which the SteepleCats gave up five runs that proved costly in a 6-4 loss to the Ocean State Waves Thursday night in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. The SteepleCats fell to 15-14 on the season with the loss.

SteepleCats starter Kyle Mora appeared sharp early on and shutout the Waves for the first two innings. Despite Mora's good start, the Waves were able to work several deep counts which ran up Mora's pitch count. After seeing a lot of pitches, the Waves were soon able to figure him out.

"I thought Kyle, for the exception of that one inning, was very effective," said Head Coach Mike Armstrong. "Even though he was going deep into counts, nobody was really barreling him up. I do not necessarily care if guys have a high pitch count early if they are getting outs."

The bottom of the third began with the SteepleCats leading 3-0. Grant Williams and Nick Angelini hit back to back singles to start it off. Austin Upshaw followed with a double scoring one run. With the bases loaded, Matt Cogen hit a sacrifice fly for the second run. Chris Hess followed with a double to tie the game. Dean Lockery then singled in two runs to give the Waves a 5-3 lead.

"To their credit they hit a couple of balls hard that inning and we made a plenty of mistakes that inning to help them out," said Coach Armstrong.

The SteepleCats took the early lead in the top of the first when Daniel Holst led off with a double and then scored on a single by Dustin Shirley. Holst came to bat again in the top of the third and hit a two run home run making it 3-0 SteepleCats. He added another RBI in the fourth when he drew a bases loaded walk to make the score 5-4 in favor of the Waves.

A major positive for the SteepleCats was the performance of Jack Rupe. Rupe came out of the bullpen to begin the fourth inning in relief of Mora. He was able to keep the 'Cats in the game, striking out four and shutting out the Waves through the seventh inning.

"He was excellent," said Coach Armstrong. "He did a great job locking it down after a tough inning for us. We are going to look for him to do that a lot for us this year down the stretch. So that was really encouraging."



New England Collegiate Baseball League Stories from July 15, 2016


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