MONTPELIER, Vt. – Keene improved to 5-0 versus Vermont with their Wednesday night 5-2 win.

Vermont’s pitching held the league’s best offense to only two earned runs, but the defense’s three errors allowed Keene to hand Vermont their fifth-straight loss.

Box Score

The Basics

Score: Keene 5, Vermont 2

Records: Keene 23-11, Vermont 11-24

Location: Montpelier Recreation Field

Rapid Recap

Ryan Brown made his second start of the season and tossed 6.1 innings. He allowed three hits and three runs with two of them being earned. He also walked four and struck out two.

Vermont scored the game’s first run after Joey Pagano’s one-out double. He scored on an RBI single from David Alvarez.

Keene took a 2-1 lead in the third on Ty Mainolfi’s RBI double to right field, and Ripken Reese followed it up with a base hit to plate Mainolfi.

Two errors from Vermont in the seventh allowed another run to score for the SwampBats.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Mountaineers threatened with Foster Apple’s double and Bennett Shealor’s two-out walk, but Conlan Daniel struck out with the tying run on first.

Reese scored to start the eighth on a little league home run. A throwing error by Matthew Minckler at third allowed Reese to get to third on a ball that got away to the Vermont bullpen. The catcher Shealor backed the throw up, but nobody covered home, and Reese scored on a ball that left his bat at 75 miles per hour. A sacrifice fly plated another run to put Keene on top 5-1.

Vermont threatened again in the ninth as they scored a run off of Keene all-star closer Todd Kniebbe. The run was unearned, but it was just the fourth run allowed all season by Kniebbe. Vermont has scored twice off of him this season. Kniebbe struck out three hitters in the ninth after Apple scored on an error.

Game Notes
WP: Aydan Decker-Petty (3-1) | LP: Ryan Brown (1-3)
Keene’s starter, Aydan Decker-Petty, tossed five innings. It marks the ninth time in the last 12 games that the opponent’s starting pitcher went five innings or more.
Vermont has lost 11 of their last 12.
Daniel failed to reach base for just the third time in 30 games.
Pagano has 12 hits in his last 12 games.
The hometown kid, Marshall Donahue, pitched a scoreless ninth.
Vermont stole three bases. The Mountaineers have been held to ten bags in the last seven games. They have 128 stolen bags and are averaging 3.6 per game. They are 17 bags away from breaking the NECBL record with 9 games remaining.
Vermont is 5.5 games back of the fourth and final playoff spot with 9 to play. Upper Valley is in fourth place, and Vermont will face them one more time with a chance to clinch the tiebreaker.
Keene will look for the season sweep of Vermont on the final day of the regular season on July 30th.

Up Next

Vermont gets Thursday off, which is their first off-day since July 10th. They’ll face North Shore on Friday at 6:30 p.m. at home.

Photo credit: Sam Hawley, Photography Intern 

Photo Description: Conlan Daniel on July 15th in North Shore

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