by Andrew Brooks (Living the Dream Blog)
Interviews by Andrew Brooks : Kyle Zimmer, Konner Wade, Justin Amlung, Coach Farris, Coach Roberts
July 1, 2011
CT Bradford (Ole Miss) led the game off against Cotuit starter Kyle Zimmer (San Francisco) with a walk. John Andreoli (UCONN) then laid down a pristine bumt that Cotuit third basemen Logan Vick (Baylor) made a barehanded play on but the throw took first basemen Ryon Healy (Oregon) just enough off the bag for Andreoli to reach first safely. Robert Refsnyder (Arizona) turned Zimmer’s next pitch into a successful sacrifice bunt, giving Max Muncy (Baylor) a chance to give the Gatemen an early lead with two runners in scoring position. He did just that. Muncy smoked a 2-RBI single to center field, giving the Gatemen all the runs that they would need.After the first inning, Zimmer really settled down. He used his change up effectively, ranged from 92-96 mph on his fastball, and pin pointed his spots from the second inning on. Zimmer worked for seven strong innings, only giving up four hits and the two runs. He walked two and struck out four.“Kyle has got a chance. He is one of those guys who has got a chance to pitch in the big leagues,” gushed Cotuit manager Mike Roberts. “It’s fun to watch him pitch, I hate that he lost two to nothing.”
Kyle felt the same way.
“My arm felt good. All my pitches were coming out pretty well. Some unfortunate happenings in the first inning I guess you could say, but other than that my stuff felt good.”
Wareham (9-8-0) got fantastic effort out of four pitchers. The starter, Justin Amlung (Louisville), went five innings walking only two Kettleers and striking out three of them. Joseph Flynn (Franklin Pierce), Daniel Feehan (Uconn), and closer Konner Wade (Arizona) finished off the last four inning striking out five batters combined. The foursome gave up three hits total on the day. At one point Wareham sat down 14 straight Kettleer’s.
“I thought our starter and our pen did a real nice job today. We had one guy who didn’t give up any runners, and the other two only had one each. So the bullpen did a real nice job today,” reflected Wareham coach Cooper Farris.
The best chance Cotuit had was in the bottom of the ninth inning. With two outs, Logan Vick belted a hard grounder just out of the reach of the first basemen Muncy allowing Vick to reach second. After a wild pitch from Wade that allowed Vick to advance to third, the pitching coach Terry Thompson came out to the mound to calm his closer. The meeting proved to be successful as Wade got the pinch-hitting Torsten Boss (Michigan State) to fly out to left field for the final out of the game.
Konner said he didn’t pitch up to his potential.
“I didn’t have my best stuff today. I was kind of up in the zone to the last two guys. Luckily I got a fly ball to get the last out of the game.”
Cotuit (5-12-1) will try and right the ship against Bourne (8-7-2) on Saturday, July 2. The game will be at Upper Cape Vocational High School. The start time is set for 5:30.