Drury Baseball Rolls into Elite 8
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – The best thing the Drury baseball team’s hitters could do in Wednesday’s Division 5 State Tournament win: nothing.
The Blue Devils worked 15 walks and had five hit batters in a 22-1, five-inning win over Brighton to advance to this weekend’s state quarter-finals.
Fourth-seeded Drury this weekend will host No. 8 Keefe Tech, a 8-5 winner over Greenfield in another Round of 16 game.
The Blue Devils’ offense did produce 11 hits when they saw the occasional strike from the five Brighton pitchers who toed the rubber, but seven of Drury’s 18 runs batted in came on either a walk or a hit batter with the bases loaded – including four straight ball fours in a nine-run first-inning rally to take a 9-1 lead.
“I thought [our hitters] did a terrific job sticking to just what we’ve been working on the entire year, and they were relentless,” Drury coach Rob Jutras said. “They just didn’t give an inch, and we couldn’t ask for anything more.
“We’ve just got to get more of the same and continue it.”
The bottom of the first started, appropriately enough, with a leadoff walk to Julian Feliciano, who went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Connor Hinkell’s RBI single.
Later, Feliciano would drive in a run with an infield single, and Hinkell’s sacrifice fly made it 9-1 before Drury starting pitcher Brayden Durant took the mound for the second inning.
After giving up a walk and a hit to Brighton’s first two hitters, Durant retired nine of the next 11 batters he faced to leave the game with a 15-1 lead after three.
“He’s a guy who settles in quickly,” Jutras said of Durant. “He pitches with a ton of confidence. He throws everything over for strikes. He works with great tempo. He’s done a terrifica job. He’s a workhorse. He’s a competitive dude, and we love him.”
Drury’s six-run second inning rally featured an RBI single from Maddox Cooke.
After going scoreless in the third, Drury tacked on four more runs in the fourth with just one hit, a single to right from Hinkell (2-for-3, two RBIs).
It was 19-1 midway through the fifth inning, but they played the bottom of the frame to get some at-bats for Drury’s reserves. Giddeon Malachuk and Noah Masselli each came through with an RBI single in the game-ending three-run rally.
Now Drury turns its attention to Keefe Tech, which knocked off a Greenfield team that beat the Blue Devils, 2-1, in eight innings back on April 10.
“We know any team that makes it to this point can play really good baseball, and we have respect certainly for Greenfield and certainly for Keefe Tech,” said Jutras, whose game ended before the start of the other Sweet 16 game.
“It takes a lot to get here to this moment, and we respect everybody, and we prepare that way.”