By John S. Condakes
JUNE 11, 2008
COTUIT—The Kettleers returned to the diamond at Elizabeth Lowell Park after a day off on Tuesday and defeated the Columbus All-Americans in game 2 of their exhibition series. Evan Crawford of Indiana paced Cotuit with 3 hits and 3 runs scored and starting pitcher Brandon Cumpton of Georgia Tech threw 3 innings of shut out baseball to propel the Kettleers to a 7-3 victory.
After a one-two-three inning by Cumpton to open the game, Brett Jackson (Cal Berkeley) and Crawford immediately provided some offensive spark for Cotuit as they both reached base in the bottom of the first. Columbus starter Michael Mulholland (Eastern Kentucky) settled down to retire the next two Kettleers by way of the strikeout but Cotuit left fielder Jeff Schaus (Clemson) delivered a two-out RBI single that plated Jackson. Crawford followed moments later on a ball hit by third baseman Jeff Kobernus (Cal Berkeley) that was misplayed by the Columbus second baseman to put the Kettleers up 2-0 after the first. Mulholland and Cumpton exchanged one-two-three innings in the 2nd and the Cotuit bats got back to work in the third inning. Crawford and first baseman Kevin Patterson (Auburn) smacked back-to-back doubles to put the Kettleers up 4-0 at the end of the third inning.
Danny Meszaros of the College of Charleston was summoned to relieve Cumpton in the 4th inning and retired the All-Americans on 5 pitches. In the 5th inning, Columbus finally cracked the scoreboard off of reliever Zach Von Tersch (Georgia Tech) with a 2-run homerun off the bat of Kent State’s Ben Klafczynski. Von Tersch then settled down to strike out the next two batters and finish the inning with the score 4-2 in favor of Cotuit. Crawford sparked another Cotuit rally in the bottom of the 5th and scored on a sacrifice fly by Patterson. Shortstop Robbie Shields singled and scored on a triple by Schaus to make the score 6-2 in favor of the home team. Von Tersch came on for the top of the sixth and recorded two more strikeouts giving him four of the Kettleers’ nine on the afternoon in only two innings.
The local nine scored their seventh and final run in the bottom of the 8th when Georgia’s Michael Markakis scored when Kobernus was caught stealing. Cotuit pitching kept the All-Americans off the scoreboard until the 9th inning when Cal Berkeley’s Daniel Wolford was touched for a run manufactured by the Columbus offense. The Kettleers batted the bottom of the ninth for the added practice but were not able to score. Cotuit managed to steal a whopping 11 bases on the afternoon which is surely an indication of Manager Mike Roberts’s aggressive attitude on the basepaths.
The Kettleers will enjoy the next few days off until their home opener against the Brewster Whitecaps on Saturday at 5 p.m. when all the innings will count towards the regular season.