PLYMOUTH – It wasn’t one that will go down as a classic, but it will go down as a Plymouth win as they defeated CMA on senior night at Bill Nixon Field in a 5-3 final.
“The thing you worry about is the final score and we won that game,” said Plymouth head coach Ryan Wolfe. “I don’t know if it’s in the kids heads a little bit, you have some guys down on themselves and it’s just going to take a couple good plays to give them some confidence. It was a tough one in the field.
“I thought we pitched well. Joey (Dragani) pitched fantastic for four innings and Bailey really pitched well. We were able to get enough runs and come away with a victory.”
It was a sloppy game with both teams making a combined 11 errors in the game with only three runs of the eight being earned runs. It was also a positive in another way as Plymouth’s already deep pitching staff got one arm deeper. Senior Joe Dragani got the start on senior night and went four innings striking out seven, not walking a hitter or giving up an earned run.
“We had him throw an inning on Saturday, he looked good there,” said Wolfe. “We had him on a pitch count of 40 or 50 pitches, we got him out at 52 and he said he felt great. Maybe we’ll get him a short outing this weekend. He just adds to our pitching staff that’s been strong all year. Our guys go out and pound the zone and do a lot of good things.”
The Eagles plated three in the second with the aid of two Plymouth errors off Dragani but CMA couldn’t take advantage of five more Plymouth miscues as the game went on.
Plymouth got their first hit of the game in the fifth, when Elijah Nixon singled to left. Joe Smith stepped up and delivered a double moving courtesy runner David Bacon to third. Bacon scored on a wild pitch and Cody Gamble’s hard gournd to shortstop Colin Dean scored Smith.
The Pilgrims won it in the sixth when Justin Drudge led off with a single to center. He scored from first when Cam Eveland’s hit and run ground ball to Dean was thrown into the dirt at first base and skipped down the right field line. Brayden Davidson reached on a fielders choice and later scored on another CMA error.
“It’s a game of ups and downs,” said Wolfe. “We started out not hitting early then we started hitting We’ve played well defensively all year, we’ve had a few lapses in the past few games. It will work itself out.”
Plymouth (13-11) will try to work it out again on Thursday at Northridge with their final NLC game of the season. CMA is now 6-9 on the season.
Linescore
CMA 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 3-5-4
Plymouth 0 0 0 0 2 3 x 5-4-7
WP – Clark. LP – Grandel. 2B – Smith (P)
