Kettleers Hammer Harwich Mariners, 12-4, On the Road

For Immediate Release

Cotuit's Winning Streak Hits Seven Games As Bats Keep on Rolling

By Megan Kerr/Asst. Web Editor

HARWICH, MA — The Kettleers bats continued to do serious damage to opposing pitching last night as Cotuit downed the host Harwich Mariners, 12-4.

    Cotuit leads the league in team batting at a .276 clip.

    Cotuit's offense had a lot of help this game though, as Harwich ended the game with more errors, eight, than hits, six. The Mariners defense began to have problems in the third inning with Cotuit already leading by five runs going into the third inning as it seemed that the Kettleers quick lead put the Mariners on their heels, causing them to make some silly mistakes.

PJ Zocchi, (Clemson, 2BB, 5K, 7H) who picked up his first loss of the season, started off the inning well, striking out the first two Kettleers batters before giving up a single to Matt Angle (Ohio State, 1 for 4). His defense then began to fail him as Tony Thomas (Florida St, 1 for 4, 1 RBI) reached base on an error by the shortstop. Angle raced to third as the ball rolled out to the outfield, and then, seeing that the shortstop wasn't paying attention to him, Angle continued home for Cotuit's sixth run of the game as the throw to home was way too late. Thomas started to second on the throw home, but appeared to be caught between bases for an easy third out. Harwich though, continued to make mistakes as the catcher overthrew the second baseman, allowing Thomas to score as the ball rolled all the way to the center field fence. Harwich wasn't able to recover from these three errors in this one play as their defense continued to be porous throughout the game.

  While Cotuit's offence provided much amusement for their fans, the Kettleers pitching continued to do their job as Christian Staehely (Princeton, 3 BB, 2K, 4H) contained the Mariners attack to pick up his third victory of the season. Staehely pitched five plus strong innings for the Kettleers, only giving up a homerun to Harwich's best better Josh Donaldson (Auburn, 1 for 4, 1 RBI), who now has three homeruns on the season and is batting .330 for the season. By only allowing one run on the evening, Staehely's earned run average is down to 2.08 on the season. Cotuit relief also pitched extremely well over the three innings as the Kettleers offence continued to hurt the Mariners for their fielding errors.

  Cotuit added three more runs in the ninth inning off of RBI's by Thomas, Jeff Rea (Mississippi St, 2 for 6, 1 RBI), and Justin Smoak (South Carolina, 1 for 4, 1 RBI) to give the Kettleers twelve runs for the night, making it almost impossible for Harwich to comeback. The Mariners though, didn't go down quietly as Cory Gearrin (Young Harris, 2BB, 2 K, 3H) appeared to be a little rusty in the bottom of the ninth. Gearrin gave up his first runs of the season as he allowed three earned runs to the Mariners, but it was too little, too late for Harwich as three runs wasn't close to the eleven they needed to tie the game up. Gearrin struck out the last batter to end the game and to improve Cotuit's record to a league best 16-6-1. Cotuit returns home now to play the third place Falmouth Commorodores and the Kettleers hope they can continue their stellar play.