Sports

Wareham Pulls Off Surprise, Knocks Out Kettleers In West

 11 August 2006


 


Riley Boening (Texas) of Wareham picked right up where his teammate Jeremy Bleich (Stanford) left off as the Gatemen pitching shut down the Kettleers. Wareham swept Cotuit, winning two straight behind the pair of lefthanders, to move onto the Cape Cod Baseball League 

Championship Series beginning today against the winner of the Yarmouth-Dennis and Brewster series.

After Bleich pitched the Gatemen to a 1-0 victory in game one, Boening took the mound Wednesday at Spillane Field and finished the job in a 5-0 complete game four-hit performance, striking out a season-high-14 Kettleers. He struck out the side in both the fourth and sixth innings and at one point retired 18 Cotuit hitters in a row.

Wareham scored once in the second, three times in the third, and added a fifth run in the fourth as the Kettleers continued to feed fresh pitchers into the fire. Jay Brown (Young Harris) got the start for Cotuit, lasting one and two-thirds frames allowing one run on three hits. Graham Godfrey (College of Charleston) was next to face the Gatemen hitters giving up three runs in one inning of work.

Cotuit Coach Mike Roberts turned to Shane Roberts (East Carolina) to get the final out of the third. Mathews went on to pitch two more innings allowing a run on three hits.

The first three pitchers the Kettleers sent to the hill struggled to throw strikes and were forced to pitch from behind in the count. Brown threw 39 pitches in his inning and two-thirds getting into jams in both the first and second frames. Godfrey walked two and allowed three hits in the third, facing eight batters. Mathews got into trouble in the fourth giving up two singles to lead off the inning. It wasn’t until the sixth when Dan Runzler (UC Riverside) took over that the bleeding stopped. Runzler pitched three scoreless innings, retiring the side in order each time. In addition to Runzler’s performance for the Kettleers, the only other highlight was the defensive performance behind the plate of Sean Gaston (Notre Dame), who did a nice job getting to balls thrown out of the strike zone.

Boening befuddled the Cotuit batters. Six times he retired the side in order holding this season’s top hitting team to four singles as the Kettleers got a base runner as far as second base just twice.

In the top of the ninth, Cotuit opened the inning with back-to-back singles by Brett Lilley (Notre Dame) and Jeffery Rea (Mississippi State), but before they had a chance to think rally the Gatemen stunned them again. Justin Smoak (South Carolina) hit a ball deep into centerfield that appeared to be out of the reach of Wareham’s Ryan Gotcher (Arkansas). At least the base runners thought so as they were off and running. However, Gotcher got to the ball and caught it, then doubled up the Cotuit runner at second snuffing out any chance at a comeback.

After three complete innings, the lights at Spillane Field malfunctioned with several towers going dark resulting in a 52-minute delay; however, it seemed the lights had already gone out on the Kettleers’ season.

Tuesday afternoon turned into a Pacific Coast pitchers’ duel with Jeremy Bleich of Stanford taking on Cotuit’s James Simmons out of the University of California at Riverside. After nine innings it was Bleich who would earn the win, as the Gatemen blanked the Kettleers 1-0.
Both teams can hit the ball, and they combined for 14 hits; however, few of them came when they needed them most.

Cotuit stranded 10 base runners, six of them in scoring position over nine innings, while Wareham left eight on base.

Simmons ran into trouble in the second and again in the fourth. After allowing a leadoff double to Luke Murton (Georgia Tech) in the second, the Gatemen moved him to third on a sacrifice bunt by Jason Ogata (LSU). Simmons then managed to get the next two Wareham batters to hit into outs to get out of the inning. He wasn’t as lucky in the fourth when he allowed back-to-back singles to open the frame. After striking out Murton for the first out of the inning Ogata hit a double into left that scored Dominic de la Osa (Vanderbilt) from second with the only run of the game.
Simmons hit the next batter to load the bases bringing Seth Henry (Tulane) to the plate. The Kettleers got out of the jam when Henry hit a sharp line drive at third baseman Brett Lilley, who caught the ball and stepped on the base doubling up the runner.

After battling through two rough innings, Simmons settled down in the fifth facing just one batter over the minimum the rest of the way retiring the Gatemen in order in the fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth. He allowed just the one run on seven hits, while striking out five and hitting one. Simmons, who with slight exception, showed the control he has demonstrated all season, hit his spots and seemed entirely in sync with catcher Sean Gaston, who was giving the signs.

Offensively, the Kettleers had several chances, but couldn’t come up with that timely hit. In the first Cotuit put runners on first and second with one out, but failed to bring them in. In the second they loaded the bases with one out, but a heads-up play by Bleich cut down the run at the plate. The next Cotuit batter popped up. In the sixth a base running error ended in a rundown between third and home with the runner tagged out to end the inning. And in the seventh the Kettleers put men on first and third with two outs, only to have the Gatemen’s Nick Cassavechia (Baylor) come in and strike out the one man he faced to end the inning.

Bleich, who went seven innings in the winning effort, gave up just four hits, two in each of the first two innings. He worked the corners with his fastball and had both his curve and change-up working. Aside from a few pitches left high in the zone early, Bleich threw strikes letting his fielders do the work. He only walked one and did not record a strikeout, but did hit a batter. Martin Beno (Mississippi Gulf Coast CC) pitched two-thirds of an inning for the Gatemen before turning it over to Cassavechia who recorded four straight outs to earn the save.

Wareham entered the postseason with confidence having won four of their last five games. For 18 innings they held the Kettleers scoreless allowing just 10 combined hits, all singles. Cotuit, on the other hand, after slugging its way to the Western Division Championship lost seven of its last nine regular season games, including two to Wareham. 


 


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