Hawks hold off Bolts, 4-2

Posted 4/13/22

By ALEX SPONSELLER

The Bishop Hendricken baseball team held on to beat host Cranston East 4-2 on Monday afternoon at Cranston Stadium.

Trailing 4-1 with the bases loaded in the seventh inning, …

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Hawks hold off Bolts, 4-2

Posted

By ALEX SPONSELLER

The Bishop Hendricken baseball team held on to beat host Cranston East 4-2 on Monday afternoon at Cranston Stadium.

Trailing 4-1 with the bases loaded in the seventh inning, the Bolts had the winning run at the plate when the Hawks would turn a double-play to make it 4-2 with two outs. Hendricken would strike out the next East batter to hold on for the win.

The game was scoreless heading into the fourth inning, but Hendricken’s Jared Munoz and Andrew Noland would knock in runs to give the Hawks the 2-0 lead. Brandyn Durand would hit solo home run in the sixth, followed by an RBI from Synsere Fernandes to make it 4-0.

East would load the bases in the bottom half of the sixth and see a run walked in to make it 4-1 heading into the seventh.

“We just didn’t get that big hit in the clutch moment. 4-1 in the seventh, bases loaded, I’ll take those odds. I don’t want to be negative about this performance; the positive is that it showed these kids that they should be confident in knowing that they can play with these guys,” said East manager Gary Bucci after the loss.

Starting pitcher John DeVine finished with four strikeouts while Randy Guzman threw two more in relief.

Hendricken got solid contributions at the plate from the middle of its lineup, which is set to be perhaps the best in the state.

“Our top four, we need them to set the table and then we need help 5-9. They came up huge today. Andrew hit the ball well, Brandyn crushed one to center. Those guys did a good job,” said Hendricken manager Ed Holloway, who was also pleased with Connor Kennedy’s performance on the mound. “He did a good job of keeping them off balance and Brandyn called a good game for us. We are strong defensively up the middle and they came through for us today, that’s a pitcher’s his best friend. They did a great of turning (the double play in the seventh).”

Durand added: “That’s one mistake we made last year, we put it all on the top guys. If we are getting hits, even just singles from our 7-8-9 hitters, that takes the pressure off of us and allows us to just do our jobs.”

Durand had a rough start to the game, striking out twice before hitting the monster shot to center.

“An analogy I like to use for hitting in baseball is, you have to have the memory of a goldfish. I struck out twice, but I couldn’t let that affect the rest of my at bats. You have to be able to move on, you have to be able to take criticism from those at bats. The first at bat I chased a high fastball. From there I knew, if there was a fastball that I could get then go for it, if not, then just lay off,” said Durand.

Kennedy finished with seven strikeouts on the mound.

“My off-speed stuff was working well for me today. I was in control of the game. I was hitting my corners, caught them leaning and then was able to use my fastball. It was good,” Kennedy said.

The Hawks improved to 3-0 on the year while East fell to 2-1. The two clubs met again on Wednesday, but the results were not available at press time.

The Hawks are coming in this season off a first-round upset in the playoffs last year. Durand and company are hoping to get back to the postseason and finish the job.

“We still have the sour taste in our mouth from losing to Cranston West at home last year. What we need to remember this year is to not let our foot off the gas late in games and to keep going,” said Durand.

Bolts, baseball

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