Hinkell Wins Pitchers Duel as Drury Tops McCann Tech

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – Drury’s Brayden Durant Wednesday was hitless and hit into a pair of double plays.

 

More importantly, Durant drove in the winning run in a 2-1 victory over McCann Tech in the Western Massachusetts Class C Quarter-Finals at Joe Wolfe Field.

 

That is the kind of game it was when the city rivals met for the third time this season.

 

Big hits were hard to come by.

 

Big pitches from Drury’s Connor Hinkell and McCann Tech’s Brodie Smith were the order of the day.

 

And Hinkell came out on the winning end of a pitchers duel to send the Blue Devils into the semi-finals against Athol, a 10-4 winner over Lenox on Wednesday.

 

“I think today Connor did a great job of limiting damage,” Drury coach Robert Jutras said. “Leaving guys stranded and really buckling down and making pitches at the right moments, kind of bending and bending but not breaking.

 

“I think he was awesome today.”

 

It was the third time this year Hinkell went the distance in a win against McCann Tech and the third time he recorded double digit strikeouts. But unlike the 10-0 and 9-2 decisions in the regular season, it felt on Wednesday like the game was hanging in the balance on virtually every pitch.

 

At the outset, it looked like Drury might run away with Round 3.

 

The Blue Devils got a leadoff walk from Carson Rylander and a single by Hinkell to start the bottom of the first. A double steal put both runners in scoring position, and Rylander scored on a wild pitch before the Hornets had recorded an out.

 

Hinkell ended up on third when Rylander scored, and he eventually scored with one out on Durant’s RBI groundout to make it 2-0.

 

But with runners on second and third, McCann Tech’s Smith shut the door, inducing a groundout to end the inning.

 

“Brody’s good,” McCann Tech coach Justin Howland said. “I’m gonna lose him. He’s switching schools. He’s moving. I’m going to lose him, but he’s a hell of a kid. He was dealing tonight.”

 

Smith ended up holding Drury to three hits and striking out three in a complete-game effort on the mound.

 

Hinkell, meanwhile, stranded runners in the first, second and fourth innings before the Hornets were finally able to cash in in the top of the fifth.

 

Jack Dolan led off with an infield single and moved up on Nolan Booth’s sacrifice bunt. Hayden Barrett then dropped down a bunt for a single, and on an overthrow to first, Dolan was able to score to make it 2-1.

 

“Hinkell is the only pitcher we’ve really seen that has velocity this year,” Howland said. “The game plan tonight was bunt, bunt, bunt, bunt. And I think we got in their heads a little bit with the bunting. Maybe we should have done a little bit more of it.

 

“But that velocity kind of kills us. We’re not used to that.”

 

As befits a game where the teams combine for three runs, both sides came up with some big defensive plays.

 

In the fourth, Hinkell picked off a runner at second base to end the inning. In the sixth, Drury left fielder Brayden Canales hit cutoff man J.J. Prenguber, who relayed to Durant at second to catch Lukas Rylander trying to stretch a single into a double.

 

For the Hornets, Dolan snared a line drive at second base and touched the bag to double off a runner to end the inning. And in the sixth, third baseman Dylan Turner started a 5-4-3 double play to end another Drury threat.

 

Jutras said low-scoring games are going to be the norm as the Blue Devils (16-3) move through the Western Mass tournament and the state tournament to follow.

 

“When you get to this point in the year, everybody’s playing really good baseball, and every pitch is pressure packed and everybody is competing at a high level,” he said. “This game is just really, really tough. And we have to keep just knocking on the door, giving ourselves chances. And we’re going to continue to attack every day and try to be our best version.

 

“But at this point, we know every game is going to look exactly like this moving forward.”

 

McCann Tech (8-8) is scheduled to go to Easthampton on Friday before it hopes to join Drury in the Division 5 State Tournament field next week.

 

Howland said there were a lot of positives to take away from Wednesday’s game.

 

“We played them twice this year, and they’ve blown us out twice,” he said of Drury. “We came into tonight saying, ‘We’ve got nothing to lose.’ We’re the eight seed. We’re not the team we were last year. We’re not the two seed. We’re not expected to win.

 

“We sure made them nervous.”