By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
For head coach Ryan Unger and his North Adams Green Devils, it was different sounding Saturday afternoon on the road at Portsmouth West High School. The Green Devils and their fan actually did hear the “crack” of the bat as they participated in the annual Rocky Nelson Wooden Bat Classic, trading in the usual aluminum equipment for the wooden sticks.
The Green devils played a doubleheader with the wooden bats, facing off first with the South Point Pointers and then with the host Senators from Portsmouth West.
Against South Point, the Devils jumped out to a quick 6-1 advantage than had to hold off a late rally from the Pointers to claim the 7-6 victory. North Adams scored a single run in the bottom of the first when Maverick Winkler was hit by a pitch and later scored on a ground out off the bat of Hunton Shiveley.
In the bottom half of the second, the Devils added on four more, the first coming-on a bases loaded walk to Kyser Swayne. A base hit by Winkler plated two more and a Colin Tolle sacrifice fly made it 5-o. South Point got to North Adams starter Carsyn Raines in the top of the third for a single run, but the Devils matched that in their half after Trace Evans drew a walk and came around to score on a base hit by Raines.
Both teams added single runs in the fifth inning and then went scoreless in the sixth, leaving North Adams on top 7-2 going to the seventh, With Winkler on the mound in relief for the Devils, the Pointers made thins interesting by scoring four times, only one of them earned, to close the gap to a single run, but Winkler got the final out on a comebacker to the mound to preserve the 7-6 North Adams win.
The Devols only managed four hits off of South Point pitching, but took advantage of six bases on balls to score seven times. Carsyn Raines was the winning pitcher, going five innings, allowing just three hits and two runs (one earned) and adding seven strikeouts.
In the second game of the wooden bat twinbill, the Devils faced host squad Portsmouth West and it was a close affair through four frames. The Devils scored one in the top of the first when Winkler led off with a single to center and scored on a base hit to left by Shiveley. In the bottom of the first, the Senators scored twice off of Devils starter Trace Evans, who then settled down and tossed three scoreless frames.
In the bottom of the fifth, however, the Senators scored three times and added two in the sixth. The North Adams offense was stifled after that first inning score and Portsmouth West finished off a 7-1 victory.
The Saturday split left Coach Unger’s Squad at 7-11 overall, with another non-conference contest trip to Portsmouth, this time to face the Notre Dame Titans. At press time, North Adams was 6-5 in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference and were scheduled to complete conference action this week. hosing West Union on Tuesday and Eastern Brown on Thursday, two teams that the Devils have beaten earlier in the season.
South Point
001 010 4 —6
North Adams
141 010 x —7
S. Point Hitting (AB-R-H-RBI): Laslo 4-1-1-0, Hands 4-2-2-1, Pope 4-1-2-2, Tabor 3-1-1-1, Pratt 4-0-0-0, Patterson 4-0-1-0, Gillum 3-0-0-0, Murphy 3-0-0-0, Thomson 2-1-0-0, Team 31-6-7-4.
N. Adams Hitting (AB-R-H-RBI): Winkler 3-1-1-2, Tolle 3-0-1-1, Shiveley 4-0-0-1, Roush 3-0-1-0, Evans 2-1-0-0, Raines 1-2-1-1, Hupp 2-1-0-0, Dean 1-1-0-0, Swayne 0-1-0-2, Team 19-7-4-7.
S. Point Pitching:
Tabor (L) 6 IP, 4 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 6 BB, 2 K. 88 pitches
N. Adams Pitching:
Raines (W) 5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 73 pitches
Winkler 2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 1 ER, 3 K, 41 pitches
Leave a Reply