Spartans Rally to Steal Win from Blue Devils
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. -- The Drury baseball team got off to a strong start but an even better finish by Monument Mountain and Travis Wilton resulted in a three-run seventh inning and a 5-4 walk-off win for the Spartans in their home tournament on Saturday.Blue Devils senior captain Tyler Benoit pitched a whale of game through six innings, allowing just one earned run with 12 strikeouts and only one walk, but he was pulled heading into final frame. Down 4-2 with three outs to go, Monument staged a three-run rally against Drury reliever Alex Bush. Thanks to some windy conditions that made it treacherous for the Blue Devils outfielders, the Spartans put themselves in a position to win. Nick Greenleaf's RBI single through the left side of the infield tied the game before Wilton slapped a single to center that brought home Greenleaf with the game-winning run.
It was a tough ending to the first game of the season for Drury, which now moves on to the tournament's consolation game against Wahconah at 11 a.m. on Monday.
"It wasn't a terrible first game," Blue Devils head coach Al Marceau said. "We left to many runners in scoring position, and the cold windy weather did not help us out at all. Tyler pitched extremely well and dominated for six innings. His pitch count was to high to send him out in the seventh, so we went with Alex. He did extremely well considering the circumstances. A couple of wind-blown balls and some excellent Monument at bats allowed them to come back and steal the win. I feel that we will be fine once we are at full strength."
Drury's offense also got off to a good start on Saturday, collecting 11 hits on the day. Trailing 2-1 after the fifth inning, the Devils scored twice in the sixth inning and added another run in the seventh to take a 4-2 lead. Wilton also got the start for the Spartans, though, and did a great job of keeping Drury away from the big inning.
Robert Jutras, Chase Preite and Max Quinn each had two hits on the day to lead the Blue Devil attack.