MIDDLEBURY — It was really a must-win game for Plymouth’s Pilgrims as they traveled to Northridge for an NLC battle and held on to take a 10-6 struggle in extra innings.
As the first round of round robin play in the conference came to a close each team needed a win to keep pace with the leaders coming in at 4-2 and not wanting to fall another game behind in the standings. With Goshen knocking off unbeaten NorthWood, the standings tightened even more. With the win, Plymouth is alone in second place just a game back at 5-2. NorthWood and Goshen are in the top slot at 6-1.
A four-run third inning had the Pilgrims feeling good with a 5-0 lead but the Raiders struck for two of their own in the bottom half and added a third an inning later. Headed to the bottom of the seventh, Plymouth held a 6-3 lead but three straight doubles plated two and a perfectly executed double steal pushed across the tying run sending the game to extra innings.
Plymouth answered with four in the top of the eighth on RBI singles by Noah Pesak, Jacob Deacon and a two-run double by Jackson Lee all with two outs. Deacon had a pair of two out hits as part of three RBIs on the night.
“For us to come back after giving up three in the seventh,” said Plymouth coach Ryan Wolfe. “We haven’t been in a game where we really had to fight and claw back. To finish the way we did was big.”
Cole Filson finished off the Raiders to take the win. The game marked the return to the mound of Cam Dennie, who was able to go four innings scattering five hits and striking out five before leaving the game.
“Our goal was to get Cam through five — we had him on a limit of 60 pitches,” said Wolfe. “We might have got him there but we had a couple of errors there that added some extra pitches. Getting him back able to throw lets us save pitches. We have four or five guys we can go to now and feel good about where we are.”
Deacon’s three clutch RBIs continued his hot start to the season that has him leading the Pilgrims in RBIs.
“He’s been clutch at the plate with two-out RBIs all year long,” said Wolfe. “Him getting that two-out single up the middle was huge. Jackson had a huge double there to drive home some runs. Really one through nine we’ve got guys who can get a bat on the ball.”
“We do need a practice tomorrow,” said Wolfe of a rare day off on Tuesday. “We need to get some BP (batting practice). We’ve got some guys that are needing to get back to understanding some things, we’ve got some younger guys getting kind of anxious now that we’re seeing some better pitchers, getting back into a routine again will be nice to get in some practice.”
•PLYMOUTH 10, NORTHRIDGE 6
at Northridge
Plymouth 1 0 4 0 1 0 0 4 10-11-1
Northridge 0 0 2 1 0 0 3 0 6-11-1
WP – Filson. LP – Nickell. HR – Dennie (P), 2B – Bible 2 (N), Hooley (N), Troyer (N), Knepp 2 (N), Becker (N), Lueking (N), Dennie (P), Deacon (P), Lee (P).
