After dropping eight of its first nine games of the season, the Cranston High School West baseball team has won four of its last five after its 6-2 defeat of St. Raphael’s at home on Thursday.

The victory marks the fourth victory in its last five match-ups and helps Cranston West improve its season mark to 5-9. The Falcons’ offense was spearheaded by second baseman Nik San Antonio, catcher Sam Franco and All-State shortstop and captain Matt Lonardo. The three combined to score five of the six West runs on the day and went 4-for-10 at the plate.

“It’s nice seeing [San Antonio, Franco and Lonardo] get on base, you know?” Cranston West head coach Rob Malo said. “We’ve struggled to have consistency throughout the lineup this year. It’s usually ‘If one guy does it, the other two don’t,’ or vice versa. It’s nice when they’re all getting on base and doing their job as one, two and three hitters.”

Both teams scored all of their runs in the fourth and fifth innings. The Falcons started the scoring when Lonardo hit a grounder off the glove of third baseman Dylan Boisclair to bring San Antonio home. After designated hitter Matt Shapiro was hit by a pitch, the bases were loaded for third baseman Dan Smith. Smith cranked a two-RBI single into the left-centerfield gap to plate Franco and Lonardo and pad West’s lead, 3-0.

Cranston West pitcher Hayden Parkes had only allowed one hit and one walk through four innings, but the Saints (1-14) did not go quietly. With Vigeant at second after a free pass and wild pitch, Boisclair crushed a two-out, two-run home run over the left field wall to cut the deficit to one. Left fielder Patrick Fleming would walk and steal second after the dinger, but Parkes pitched out of the jam when captain and second baseman Jacob Roy struck out looking.

“It’s good to see,” Malo said of Parkes’ rebound after the home run. “That’s kind of been our problem all year, whether it’s a pitcher or guys in the field, something goes wrong and you just see the shoulders kind of start to slouch. And that’s what we’ve been preaching the past couple of weeks, we’ve got to get mentally tougher.”

The Falcons’ offense did not slouch in the bottom half of the fifth. Franco’s bloop single to left field scored right fielder Mitch Carvalho, who reached base on a hit-by-pitch. Later in the inning, Shapiro recorded his only hit of the day with a two-RBI single to bring San Antonio and Franco home.

Parkes did the rest.

He settled down and picked up the victory, surrendering one hit and one walk over the final three innings. He tossed all seven innings, allowing two runs on three hits with six strikeouts and three walks.

Vigeant also registered a complete game, but struggled mightily at times with his control as he picked up the loss. He hit three batters and walked two more while allowing nine hits and six earned runs. Outside of the fourth and fifth, though, Vigeant allowed just one hit and quieted West in the final two innings.

The Saints’ offense did not offer much help. Since its 13-9 victory against Cranston East on April 24, St. Ray’s has only scored 12 runs in eight league games (0-8), never scoring more than three per contest. The Saints put a runner at second base on five separate occasions, but only plated one of them.

“Before, we were hitting the ball and we weren’t playing good defense,” Saints’ head coach Thomas Sorrentine said. “Now we’re playing a little bit better on defense and getting a little better pitching, but now we can’t hit. I don’t know what it is. We had some guys who were hot early and now they’ve kind of cooled down.”

Designated hitter Brendan Aldrich took second base on a wild pitch in the third inning, but got picked off for the third out. Vigeant grounded out to first baseman Connor Kiernan with runners at first and second in the fifth inning. A fielder’s choice and error at third base put Saints at first and second in the sixth, too, with one out. Second baseman Jacob Roy fouled out to first and right fielder Anthony Morris struck out to end the threat.

The Falcons are fighting for the final playoff spot in Division I – sitting in ninth place behind Woonsocket (6-7) and Middletown (7-8).

“We joked the other night, ‘We won one game, then we won two, we’ve now won two in a row, we win the next that’s three. That’s called a winning streak,” Malo said, paraphrasing a quote from the film “Major League II.” “This was our winning streak game.”