PLYMOUTH – Despite temperatures in the 80’s, the sizzle of Keene State baseball was hotter at Panther Field Sunday as they took care of the Plymouth State University Panthers 8-3.
Winners of 11 of their last 13, including four conference games in a row, the Owls have shown their resilient nature as they continue to win on the road and are yet to play a home game this season due to unplayable field conditions.
Plymouth, on the other hand, is headed in the opposite direction, as they have lost their last four, including a double-header sweep at the hands of the University of Southern Maine on Saturday that was sandwiched between Friday and Sunday losses to Keene State.
Defensive play, once again, was the Achilles’ heel of the Panthers who have committed a conference-high 65 errors on the season and are currently last in the Little East Conference with a .926 fielding percentage. Despite their defensive woes, PSU does post a .301 team batting average that slots them fourth in the LEC. Keene has had outstanding pitching and is currently second, behind Eastern Connecticut with a 3.80 team ERA and a 2.65 batting average against.
In the first inning, two errors, followed by a fielder’s choice and an RBI single by Keene’s Beau Darak, led to the 4-0 advantage that PSU would not be able to overcome.
The Panthers were able to get on the board in the second inning after senior Steve Campo’s fielder’s choice RBI followed a double by junior John Pogorzelski, make the score 5-1. Pogorzelski finished two for four, and last weeks’ LEC player of the week, senior Josh Labossiere, was only able to record one hit.
Keene’s junior third baseman, Joe Rousseau, finished the day two for three with an RBI and a run scored and first-year infielder Beau Darak was two-for-four with two RBI’s. Keene continued to increase its lead from that point and an RBI double in the sixth by Plymouth’s senior Jamie Aceto as well as senior Dylan Mullin’s first career home run was all that PSU could muster for a comeback attempt, in this one, as Keene continues to punish conference opponents with a 7-1 conference record.
I would have liked to have gone further in this one,” said Keene starter Jon Young (2-1) after the win. “We had a big weekend, our pitchers are all spent, so I just wanted to go far into this game to take some pressure off,” remarked Young about Keene’s recent road trip. Young recorded his second victory of the season and Plymouth junior Justin Flanagan pitched well, giving up five hits and one earned run during his six innings of work with sophomore Joe Brayton taking the loss for the Panthers. “I haven’t pitched in a while and I wanted to do something good, throw strikes,” said Flanagan.
Plymouth State’s busy second-half of April continued as they traveled to Lyndon State on Monday. Plymouth will host UMass Boston on Saturday afternoon at Panther Park at 12:00 P.M.