Claremont
The day had a not-so-hot start before the first pitch. Ryan Napsey, the team’s No. 1 hurler, was a long way from the field, vacationing in Florida. What followed was a succession of pitchers who walked 10, gave up 12 hits, hit three batters and balked a couple of times.
Freshman catcher Henri Bourque and sophomore second baseman Noah Spaulding each had two hits, providing a positive on an otherwise difficult day.
In defense of the Cardinals, who saw enemy pitching for the first time, the Vikings were playing their third game, having demolished Wilton-Lynborough, 18-1, to go with a 1-0 loss to highly touted Monadnock. Still, Silva knows that for whomever is pitching, strikes must be a first priority.
“You’ve got to throw the ball over the plate,” Silva said. “It all starts there.”
The tenseness of playing the first game was evident right off the bat. Stevens pitcher Zach O’Brien walked the first two Mascenic batters on nine pitches before recording three straight outs to escape the inning.
“I know we got a bunch of runs today, but we also squandered some chances,” Mascenic coach Kevin Rines said.
The Vikings scored five runs in the second inning, one in the third, four in the fifth and four in the seventh to win going away.
“We put the ball in play, picked it up on defense and, for the most part, threw the ball over the plate,” said Rines, who pitched Cooper Warynon for four innings and Travis Rautiola for three.
Warynon allowed all four Stevens hits, while Rautiola didn’t give up a hit in his three innings. Stevens touched him for an unearned run.
“We could have played cleaner on defense,” Rines said.
Mascenic also was able to stay away from using ace hurler Scott Humphrey, who was the tough-luck loser in the loss to Monadnock.
While there was some nice play on defense for the Cardinals, they also made four errors.
“I think we played tense today,” Silva said. “You have to play this game relaxed.”
Spaulding’s legs got the Cards a run in he bottom of the first when he beat out an infield hit, stole second base, went to third on an infield out and scored on a fielder’s choice.
Spaulding was involved in the other two Stevens runs as well. In the fourth, he singled in Bourque, and in the sixth his grounder was booted to allow Bourque, who had reached on an error, to score.
Sophomore Drew Grenier and freshman Derrick Stanhope also pitched for the Cards, who visit Newfound on Thursday.