NORTH CLARENDON — Make no mistake: The 3-0 Rivendell baseball team has the pitching.
Will Knowles pitched a perfect game against Mount St. Joseph in winning the opener, Parker Piper took a no-hitter into the seventh in beating Twin Valley and Thursday Knowles went the distance in a 16-5, 5-inning victory over Mill River in which he struck out nine.
It is not surprising when the pitching is ahead of the hitting in these early stages of high school baseball.
“We have good pitching. Pitching is one thing that you can get done in the gym,” Rivendell coach Eric Reichert said.
It was the season opener and new Mill River coach Nick Webb was pretty happy with his own pitcher.
Sasha Auer pitched into the fifth inning in a game abbreviated to five innings by the 10-run rule. He was victimized by errors but showed an ability strike batters out. He piled up seven strikeouts in 4.2 innings.
“Sasha is a good pitcher, one of our top pitchers if not the top pitcher,” Webb said.
It was a day tough to pitch or hit. Frigid temperatures had fans bundled up.
“Your typical spring day,” cracked Reichert.
It was not your typical 10-run rule game. The Minutemen scored three runs in the fourth to pull within a run of Rivendell, 6-5. Left-handed batter Tyler Kennedy had an opposite field single in the inning, Xavier Auer reached on an error and Toby Pytlik stroked an RBI single. When the frame was over, Caiden Rochon, Kennedy and Xavier had scored and the Minutemen were trailing by just a run.
But the Raptors answered in the fifth with a 10-run inning in which they sent 16 hitters to the plate.
They had only five hits in the inning but errors and four walks allowed the Raptors to bust the close game wide open. Wyatt McNelly struck the biggest blow, a two-run single.
“The score does not tell what kind of game this was. Anyone who was here knows that,” Webb said.
The Minutemen will look to break through for the first victory on Tuesday at Green Mountain.
Webb believes he has pitching beyond Sasha Auer.
“We have four or five guys who can throw,” Webb said.
The Raptors staked Knowles to a lead by pushing a run across in the first inning when Braydan Larson, Luke Avery and Gillian Kenneally banged out three consecutive base hits.
The Minutemen answered with a run in the bottom of that inning when Pytlik reached on an error and scored on another.
A pivotal point in the game came in the third inning when Rivendell’s Parker Piper came to the plate with the bases loaded. He got into the ball squarely, hitting it to the deep outfield. The Mill River outfielder caught up to the ball and had the inning-ending out in the pocket of his glove but it dropped out, the error allowing all three runners to score.
They scored four in that inning to tale a 6-1 lead.
Knowles looked to be in command with that lead but the Minutemen cut into it with a run in the third when Pytlik walked and scored on Ferguson’s ground out.
Then, things got serious with the Minutemen’s three-run fourth and it appeared an exciting finish might be in the offing.
But when a team is playing its opener against a good team that had a couple of games under its belt, things can happen fast and they did.
The Raptors have to be considered one of a batch of favorites in Division IV after getting out of the gate at 3-0, but Reichert knows the field is a tough one.
“Everything goes through Blue Mountain and Stratton Mountain came out of nowhere last year. Proctor could be tough and MSJ could still be one of the teams,” Reichert said.
The Proctor players were at Mill River to take in the game.
The Minutemen are in Division III and Reichert was impressed with them.
“That is a solid Division III team. You should be happy,” he told his players after the game.
The defensive gem of the day was a catch in the right-centerfield gap on the dead run by Mill River centerfielder Ethan Severy.
Kenneally went 3-for-4 at the plate for the Raptors.
The Raptors host Arlington on Tuesday as they look to remain unbeaten.
Webb found plenty to be encouraged about for a first game and he and the Minutemen will look to build upon that Tuesday at Green Mountain’s Paul Adams Field.
