WRENTHAM, Mass. - Stoughton had dropped three of its last four games and the young Black Knights found themselves under .500 after the opening seven games of the season. According to head coach Mike Armour, Stoughton simply needed to start playing better baseball, so on Tuesday he took out the fungo bat and hit bucket after bucket of grounders.
On Wednesday, after the Black Knights flashed some leather and played an all-around solid game to pull out a 3-1 win at King Philip, Armour was able to joke about the blisters he caused himself during that practice. He was also able to credit his team with much needed strong performance.
“We haven’t played good baseball up to this point,” he explained. “We’ve had mental errors, physical errors, not knowing where we’re supposed to be, just stuff that we’re not accustomed to doing around here. I think it’s a process getting the team to where we want to be and today was a step.”
The Black Knights have a young roster and it was a pair of sophomores that made the difference on Wednesday.
Ryan Sullivan needed fewer than 70 pitches to pick up the complete game victory. He struck out three, allowed only five hits, and one unearned run in the fourth and finished the game by retiring nine of the last 10 hitters he faced. Offensively, Justin Hutchinson went 2-3 and drove in all three runs.
“Just a senior effort and the kid’s only a sophomore,” said Armour about his pitcher. “He’s a three-sport athlete and you don’t see those too often and he doesn’t shy away from the moment. He picked us up in the first inning after a couple errors and got it done.”
KP had two in scoring position in the first after an error and a bloop that dropped just over the head of shortstop Chris McNulty behind second base. Sullivan induced a pair of groundouts to end the inning and strand the runners. The Warriors would only be able to put more than one runner on base in an inning one time after the first.
“He mixed it up well,” said KP coach Pat Weir about Sullivan. “He hit his spots and we were off-balance with the curve. I think we had five hits today and it’s going to take more than that to get it done.”
KP starter Jon Rolfe was also solid after getting out of a jam in the first. Stoughton finally broke the deadlock in the top of the fourth. With one out, Alex Acciavatti lined a single to right and then stole second. Hutchinson, the No. 7 hitter lined a double over the head of freshman leftfielder Ben Furfari for an RBI double.
The Warriors responded in the bottom frame. Rolfe singled to center to start the inning and Michael McCarthy was hit by a pitch. Jackson Fleming attempted a sacrifice bunt but it was right back to Sullivan who got the force at third for the first out. After a fly ball to right, Sullivan appeared to be out of the jam when Jon Hurley grounded back to the mound, but Sullivan’s throw was wild allowing the run to come home.
Armour said, “He had the one throwing error in the fourth and we picked him up. That’s something we’ve tried to stress…If someone makes an error then you have an opportunity to pick them up and I was proud of the guys that we did that today.”
In the sixth, Stoughton got a leadoff walk, but the pinch runner was picked off by Rolfe. Sullivan reached on an infield single to short and Acciavatti, who reached base all three plate appearances, followed with a single to center. Nick Staples threw into third, which allowed Acciavatti to take second and forced the infield to come in.
“Defensively, it takes us out of a lot of opportunity for the first and third to turn two or if they try to steal it takes away the opportunity for us to put in a couple of plays to try and stop it,” said Weir. “By not keeping the guy at first base, it takes it out of our hands.”
With the infield drawn in, Hutchinson came through. He bounced a grounder right back up the middle and past the dive of second baseman Stephan MacMeans. Both runners would come around to score and make it 3-1.
“Hutch…he had a day,” said Armour. “It was good seeing him come through. Our top two were 0-fer and Gibby is having great at bats but there’s no one on for him. A lot of times you see the bottom of the order pick those guys up.”
With Hutchinson on second because of a passed ball, Luke Butera singled to leftfield. Furfari came up firing and his perfect throw to Fleming nailed the runner at the plate and kept it a two-run game.
The Warriors got a leadoff single in the bottom of the sixth from William Weir, but a strikeout and a pair of groundouts ended the inning without any damage done. It was the only base runner that the Warriors had in the final three innings.
“The times that we did get a guy on base, it was tough to run on their phenomenal catcher [Gibb],” said Weir. ‘We tried it a few times in situational stuff, but we ran into outs at second base. We tried to get it going but it was a difficult day today.”
Stoughton (4-4) will try to keep the momentum going on Friday with the visit of Attleboro. KP (3-5) will try to bounce back on Friday at Oliver Ames.
Josh Perry can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @Josh_Perry10.