ITEM PHOTO BY KATIE MORRISON
St. Mary’s catcher Ryan Turenne chases Fenwick’s Cam Eon back to third base, tagging him before he can get back safely.
By HAROLD RIVERA
LYNN — If you’re up against the St. Mary’s baseball team, it’s best not to let the Spartans hang around. Bishop Fenwick led 3-0 through 5 1/2 innings, but failed to deliver the knockout punch. The Spartans sparked a five-run rally in the bottom of the sixth to steal the victory, 5-3, on Wednesday at Fraser Field.
For Fenwick, Wednesday’s game was full of missed opportunities.
“We have to make sure we take care of our opportunities better,” Fenwick coach Kevin Canty Jr. said. “When we have chances to put teams away, we put teams away. We’re pretty young, so I know we’ll make some mistakes. I just wish they didn’t come at such critical times.”
The game went scoreless for the first four innings. Fenwick starting pitcher Dave Furtado allowed just two hits through the first four frames, while the Spartans were aided by critical baserunning mistakes committed by the Crusaders.
Fenwick ran itself into double-plays to end the second and third innings, and one of those occurred with runners on second and third.
“Those were huge,” Canty Jr. said. “We work on that everyday, we do our running with our hitting. We try to make sure we’re getting good reads, things like that. We have to make sure we get rid of those mistakes and we need to continue to work on it.”
St. Mary’s pitcher Kordell Henriquez managed to keep the Crusaders off the scoreboard until the top of the fifth, when Fenwick took a 2-0 lead. Dan Mastromatteo led off with a single and advanced to second after a failed pickoff attempt. Nick Fowler bunted him over to third, and Mastromatteo scored on a RBI single by Angelo McCullough. Three batters later, McCullough scored on an RBI single off the bat of Kasey O’Brien.
The Spartans went down in order in the bottom of the fifth, and it seemed as though it wasn’t going to be St. Mary’s game.
“We hit a few balls hard, right at some of Fenwick’s players,” St. Mary’s coach Derek Dana said. “Then we started giving some at-bats away. We started swinging way too aggressive.”
The Crusaders added another run in the top of the sixth, capitalizing on a St. Mary’s error committed in the outfield to cushion their lead at 3-0. Fenwick threatened to add to the damage with two outs and the bases loaded, but Spartans reliever Tommy Cash pitched his way out of the jam.
The game changed course in the bottom of the sixth. Lisandro Pacheco and Jack Ward started the inning with a pair of singles. Ryan Turenne followed with a laser to first base, bringing Pacheco home for the first Spartans run.
“We made an adjustment there in the sixth inning,” Dana said. “We started taking our pitches, getting our pitches and started doing something with them.”
John Mulready walked to load the bases and Tyler Donovan drew a walk of his of own, scoring Ward to make it a one-run game at 3-2. A sacrifice fly off the bat of Anthony Nickolakakis brought home Aedon Leydon, who pinch-ran for Turenne, to tie the game at 3-3.
Mulready scored the go-ahead run on a walk drawn by Colin Reddy with the bases loaded to grab the 4-3 lead. The Spartans added another run to make it 5-3 before Fenwick managed to stop the bleeding.
“What I liked is that the results may not have been very good for the first five innings but we played a full seven innings and that paid off for us,” Dana said.
Cash sent Fenwick down in order in the seventh to ice the win.
“For Tommy to come in 1-2-3 in the seventh, that’s outstanding,” Dana said.
St. Mary’s (4-0) hosts Greater Lowell on Friday. Fenwick (1-2) hosts Matignon on Monday.