The Bishop Hendricken Hawks were swept in the best-of-three Division I Baseball Championship Series on Saturday, falling 10-7 in Game 2 to the North Kingstown Skippers at Rhode …
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The Bishop Hendricken Hawks were swept in the best-of-three Division I Baseball Championship Series on Saturday, falling 10-7 in Game 2 to the North Kingstown Skippers at Rhode Island College.
It was the Skippers second-straight D-I baseball title in a row.
North Kingstown starting pitcher Braeden Perry was productive throughout the day, pitching 6 2/3 innings while yielding four earned runs onnine hits.
Sophomore Ryan Thompson took the ball for the Hawks and lasted just 1 2/3 innings, giving up two earned runs, on four hits, a walk, and a hit batsman.
Hendricken was led by its senior Brandyn Durand, a catcher, who hit a single and two home runs, with four RBI.
Andrew Ciarniello, a junior, topped North Kingstown with a single, a walk, a double, and a triple, and two RBI.
The Skippers scored three runs in the second inning, and then two runs in the top of the fifth and possessed a 5-0 lead.
But in the bottom of the fifth, the Hawks bats finally got going.
Thompson, the pitcher, led off with a single to centerfield.
Next, Alex Clemmey, a junior, rocketed a shot at the second baseman, who made a throwing error to first, and so Thompson headed for third. On the throw over, the first baseman overthrew the third baseman and that allowed Thompson to come home and score, pulling Hendricken within 5-1.
Then, with a runner at third, Griffin Crain launched a sacrifice fly to left-center and inched Hendricken within 5-2.
Next, John LaRose singled, and then Durand crushed his first2-run home run of the game over the wall in left field and pulled the Hawks within 5-4.
But in the top of the seventh, Max Proulx grabbed North Kingstown an insurance run when he hit an RBI double to right-center, and extended the Skippers advantage to 6-4.
Durand answered the call again in the bottom of the inning with another two-out, two-run homer, and evened the score at 6.
“He did a great job and he got us back in the game,” Hawks manager Ed Holloway said. “And give North Kingstown credit, they could have folded there, but they didn’t. They came back strong and beat us. I give credit to them. I love our team. I love the way we fought and came back, but I give credit to them, too. They didn’t give up and it could have been an easy time tofold there, but they didn’t, and they did a great job. They’re well coached. Kevin (Gormley) does a great job with them and they’ve got good pitching. Their pitching was outstanding.”
In the eighth frame, Ciarniello hit an RBI triple and gave the Skippers back the lead at 7-6.
Next, Evan Maloney added an RBI single and extended the North Kingstown lead to 8-6.
Then, with runners at the corners, the Skippers executed a double-steal, which scored both runners after an error, and that gave North Kingstown a 10-6 buffer.
“We just didn’t handle it the way we’ve practiced it,” Holloway said. “You can practice it all the way, but then when the pressures on it’s a lot different, and we just didn’t do it the way we’re supposed to do it.”
“We fell asleep and we just fell apart,” Holloway said. “We gave up two runs there that came back to hurt us. Learn from it and hope to do better next year.”
In the bottom of the eighth, Thompson hit an RBI single and got the Hawks within 10-7.
Then, with the bases loaded and none out, North Kingstown manager Kevin Gormley called for his son, senior reliever TJ Gormley.
Gormley got Braeden Campbell to ground back to the mound and the pitcher threw home for the first force-out before the catcher threw to first for the double play. Lastly, after a walk, the bases were reloaded, but Gormley got LaRose to fly out to center for the final out.
North Kingstown defeated Hendricken by a final score of 1-0in Game 1 last Wednesday.
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