By ALEX SPONSELLER The Bishop Hendricken baseball team topped Lincoln in back to back games over the weekend, grinding out a tough 4-2 win on Saturday and an 11-10 win on Monday.

The Hawks fell behind 2-0 early on Saturday and were held without a baserunner until the fourth inning. From there, the Hendricken bats would come to life, starting when Noah Sullivan knocked in Brandyn Durand to make the score 2-1.

Hendricken would take the lead in the fifth inning when Daniel Rice hit a 2-run double. Jared Munoz would give the Hawks some insurance, knocking in another run and extending the lead to 4-2.

Freshman pitcher Ryan Thompson came on in relief in the top of the fifth and pitched shutout ball for the final three innings. Lincoln put runners on base in the bottom of the seventh, but Thompson would hold on to secure the win. Starting pitcher Adam Marsh would collect the win for his four innings of work.

“We’ve struggled all year hitting, so we just tried to get a few people on and put the pressure on them, force the pitcher to go from the stretch. Rice went down 0-2 (in the count), got a huge hit for us which was big and scored us three runs. We got more focused that inning and swung the bats better from that point on. We’ve been struggling hitting,” said Hendricken coach Ed Holloway after the win.

It was Thompson’s second relief appearance for the Hawks, and Holloway has been impressed with his young hurler in the early going.

“He’s huge. He came in relief in North Kingstown, he’s been outstanding for us and has pitched as well as all of our pitchers so far. He’s going to be a huge part of our team going forward,” Holloway said.

Each of the Lincoln runs were set up by errors. The first came after an overthrow on a pickoff at first pushed the runner into scoring position. Another failed throw to first base put the other eventual run in scoring position the following inning.

“We stress to them that we want to only give them 21 outs, but we gave them 23, 24 outs which is not what we want. We have a whole new team, only three of these guys played varsity (in 2019),” said Holloway. “It’s a short season and we’re about where we should be, but we just need to keep getting better and hopefully be playing our best baseball at the end of the season. They’re a good team, well coached and fundamentally sound. We got a few breaks today.”