By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
On what turned out to be an absolutely beautiful Monday afternoon for baseball, the pristine diamond at North Adams High School was the site of an early season non-conference battle between a pair of Adams County rivals. The host Green Devils welcomed to Seaman the Peebles Indians before a nice afternoon crowd, taking advantage of the weather to see a competitive high school baseball game.
Though the host squad took an early lead on Monday, the Indians battled back to go in front, saw the Devils rally, then tacked on a pair of huge insurance runs in their final at-bat to claim a 7-4 road victory and improve to 3-0 on the young season.
It was the Devils who struck the first blow, picking up two runs in the bottom of the first off of Peebles starter Ethan Beekman. With one out, Easton Daulton drew a walk and went first to third on a base hit to right by Caleb Rothwell. Daulton scored the first run of the game on a Nathan Parks sacrifice fly and a following single to center by Connor Rhoden plated Rothwell to give North Adams the early 2-0 advantage.
Making his first start of the season for the Devils was the right hander Daulton, After a scoreless first inning, the Tribe touched up Daulton for a three-spot in the top of the second. Zane Porter led off the frame with a walk, went to second on an error, then scored on a single to left by Beekman, who moved to second when the throw home was too late to get Porter. Evan Day lined a single to right that drove home Beekman and then came around to score when a perfect bunt by Garrett Shiveley resulted in a pair of North Adams errors to make it 3-2 Peebles. Cory Reed later in the inning slashed a long two-bagger but was left stranded when Daulton got Gage Grooms on a ground out to shortstop for the third out.
As both pitchers settled in, it remained a one-run game until the Indians came to the plate in the top of the fifth and added one more to their lead. Reed coaxed a base on balls leading off the fifth, stole second, went to third on a passed ball, then scored on a sacrifice fly to right by Grooms that made it 4-2.
In the top of the sixth with Ethan Taylor in relief for the Devils, the Indians added to their advantage when Day singled, moved to second on a Shiveley sacrifice bunt, then to third on a wild pitch. A ground ball off of the bat of Bradley Shoemaker was misplayed by Devils’ second baseman Kelby Moore, allowing Day to score, making it 5-2.
With southpaw Nathaniel Cummings now on the mound for Peebles, the Devils answered with a two-run bottom of the sixth. Rothwell walked, followed by Parks reaching on an error, with Parks being replaced by pinch-runner Ryan Reed. Rotwell would raced across on a wild pitch while Reed came home on an RBI ground out by Rhoden and the Devils had cut the Peebles lead to 5-4.
In the top of the seventh, the Indians picked up a pair of huge insurance runs. Mason Sims drew a one-out walk from Taylor and North Adams head coach Rob Meade again went to the pen, bringing in right hander Nathan Parks. Parks immediately walked Porter to put runners at first and second. Sims moved to third on a passed ball and came home on a squeeze bunt by Cummings. Porter then took off to steal third and was safe and raced home when the throw was errant, giving the Tribe a 7-4 advantage.
With one more shot, the Devils went down in order in the seventh as Cummings earned a save, striking out the final two hitters to seal the deal on the third win of the season.
The loss dropped the Devils to 1-2 on the spring and Coach Meade was pretty plain about what went wrong on the home team side.
“It seems as if we have a hard time getting out of our own way,” said Meade. “We put ourselves in a good spot going into the seventh, only to have defensive miscues give them two insurance runs. We struggled to execute situational at-bats throughout the game, which makes it even more difficult to overcome seven errors.”
“Give credit to Peebles. They pitched well, put pressure on us at the plate and played clean defensively.”
Ethan Beekman was the winning pitcher, going five innings, allowing two earend runs and striking out six. Nathanile Cummings tossed the final two innings and earned the save. Starter Ethan Daulton took the loss for North Adams, going 4 2/3 innings and alloing four earned runs.
Base hits were at a premium as the two teams combined for just 1, Evan day leading Peebles with a 2 for 4 day while the Devils had six different players with one hit apiece.
The winning Indians will be back in action, weather permitting, on Thursday, April 6, with a very tough Southern Hills Athletic Conference road trip to Whiteoak.
The Devils were back on their home field on Tuesday, hosting the Fairfield Lions in SHAC action and then hosting Eastern Brown in conference play on Thursday. On Saturday, the Devils will stay at home to host Paint Valley in a noon non-conference affair.
Peebles
030 011 2 —7
North Adams
200 002 0 —4
Peebles Hitting (AB-R-H-RBI): Reed 3-1-1-0, Grooms 3-0-0-1, Sims 3-1-1-0, Porter 2-2-0-0, Beekman 4-1-1-1, Cummings 0-0-0-1, Day 4-2-2-1, Shiveley 2-0-0-0, Robinson 3-0-0-0, Team 26-7-5-4.
Extra-Base Hits: Reed 2B
N. Adams Hitting (AB-R-H-RBI): C. Young 2-0-0-0, Groves 2-0-0-0, Daulton 3-1-1-0, Rothwell 2-2-1-0, Parks 2-0-0-1, R. Reed 0-1-0-0. Rhoden 3-0-1-2, Shupert 2-0-1-0, Swayne 1-0-1-0, Taylor 3-0-1-0, A. Young 3-0-0-0, T. Reed 3-0-0-0, Tolle 0-0-0-0, Team 26-4-6-3.
Peebles Pitching:
Beekman (W) 5 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 76 pitches
Cummings (SV) 2 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 42 pitches
N. Adams Pitching:
Daulton (L) 4.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 73 pitches
Taylor 1.2 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 25 pitches
Parks 0.2 IP, 0 H, 1 R. 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 11 pitches