By Bryan Brown

Plymouth Pulls Ahead Late

The Plymouth Pilgrims took a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning and added three more in the seventh for a 5-1 win over the Danbury Westerners. Both starting pitchers pitched pretty well, but Plymouth got more length from their starter, as it seemed to come easier for him on this particular night. Offense was hard to come by in this game, as the ball wasn’t traveling well with a breeze blowing in; there were no home runs hit by either team. Danbury’s only run of the game was unearned on an error by the catcher.

The Westerners actually took the first lead of the game in the second inning. Sean Buckhout (Stony Brook University) took off towards second base and the catcher made an inaccurate throw, which allowed Walker Imwalle (Davidson College) to score. The Pilgrims would tie the game at one run apiece in the third inning on an Isaiah Cullum (University of Missouri Columbia) RBI single and it would stay that way until the sixth inning.

In the sixth inning, Tyler Wyatt (Grand Canyon University) had an RBI single of his own to give his team the 2-1 lead. Plymouth would then tack on three runs in the seventh inning with RBIs from William Homza (Brown University) and Elijah Dunham (Indiana University).

The Westerners were only able to tally five hits against the Pilgrims pitching. Grant Donahue (University of Virginia) got the start and went seven innings, giving up just the one unearned run on four hits and two walks; he also struck out six. Declan Cronin (College of the Holy Cross) pitched the last two scoreless innings and gave up just one hit and one walk, while striking out four.

Brian Rodriguez (Northeastern University) got his first start of the season for the Westerners; he has four saves on the season, and threw 84 pitches over four innings. He gave up the one run on five hits and two walks, while striking out five Pilgrims batters. The bullpen gave up four runs across four innings and with how well Plymouth pitched, Danbury didn’t have very many chances to breakthrough on the offensive end.

The Westerners will look to get back in the win column on Tuesday and will have two chances to do so. The Upper Valley Nighthawks are coming to Rogers Park for a doubleheader. A game scheduled to be in Upper Valley on June 28th that was postponed will be made up as the first game of the doubleheader and the second game is a scheduled home game for the Westerners.