Wild Pitch Gives Spartans Dramatic Win over Devils

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. -- The Monument Mountain baseball team certainly knows how to beat Drury in dramatic fashion. 

In the first game of the season, the Spartans scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to hand the Blue Devils a come-from-behind 5-4 defeat. On Friday, Monument was at it again, scoring a run in the bottom of the 11th frame to defeat Drury 9-8 at home. 

The marathon win for the Spartans (14-4) featured seven different pitchers and 30 hits combined for both squads. The Blue Devils (12-7) took three different leads in innings 5-7 but each time Monument rallied back to tie the game. The Spartans eventually won it in the bottom of the 11th, when Matt Chamberland scored from third base with the bases loaded on wild pitch by Drury senior Tyler Benoit. Benoit came on in the seventh inning and allowed the game-tying run to push the game into extra innings. He settled in nicely after that, however, holding Monument scoreless over the next three frames. 

Benoit gave up back-to-back singles to Chamberland and Alex Hill to start the bottom of the 11th, however, and Jon Obanhein was able to beat out his sacrifice bunt to load the bases one hitter later. Benoit got the next batter to fly out, but sailed his second pitch to John Kinne to the backstop, allowing Chamberland to score the winning run. 
  
It was an unfortunate way to end the season for Benoit, who was charged with his first and only loss of the season in his team's 19th game of the year. Benoit struck out two and walked one in four plus innings of work on Friday. He allowed just one earned run in the loss, giving him a whopping three for the entire season. Overall, Benoit went 4-1 with 50 strikeouts and just 13 walks in just under 36 innings of work his final year with the Blue Devils. 

"it was a tough loss today," Drury head coach Al Marceau said. "We made one mistake that Monument capitalized on, and it let them tie it up in the seventh. Joel Giorgi did an excellent job in his first start of the year. He gave us five strong innings and kept us in the game. Tyler was scheduled to start Saturday versus St. Joe, but once they tied it in the seventh we stuck with him and tried to get a win.

"We were close, but five games in six days really limits what you can do with your staff. We're trying to get a tired staff through the last two games of the season."

Giorgi gave up five earned runs through the first five innings, striking out two and walking one before turing the ball over to the bullpen. The Blue Devils erased a 3-1 deficit by scoring four times in the top of the fifth, only to see the Spartans tie the game with two runs in the bottom half of their inning. Marceau's squad then scored two runs in the sixth and one more in the seventh but each time the hosts answered right back to even the score. 

Zach Wilton picked up the win for Monument by throwing four scoreless frames in extra innings. He also helped his cause with three hits and two RBI, while Hill and Obanhein also notched three hits on the day. Peter Dassatti (double), Cody Primmer (two RBI) and Robert Jutras each had three hits for Drury, while senior shortstop Chase Preite went 2 for 4 with a triple, two RBI and two runs scored. 

"Offensively, I felt like we did a nice job of putting the ball in play and working up the pitch count," Marceau said. "[Wilson] Flower is an excellent pitcher, and we were able to get five runs off of him in five innings."

The Blue Devils close out the regular season with an 11 a.m. home game against St. Joe's on Saturday. 

 

 
 
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