ELKHART – It was hard to find something not to like in Plymouth’s opening game of the 2014 NLC season. The Pilgrims came out 16-6 winners and banged out 19 hits in the game and led from first pitch to final pitch.
“Coming after Saturday when we struggled a little bit, didn’t put the ball in play very well, we did hit the ball well,” said Plymouth head coach Ryan Wolfe. “We were going to emphazize that tomorrow in practice, with five games coming up give the arms a little rest and get a lot of swings in, but we did hit the ball well.”
The Pilgrims put up a five spot on Elkhart Memorial starter Scottie Clark, who did his best to recover but didn’t get much help from with some key Charger errors. Brock Herman, Brandon Kosloski and Riley Butts were able to slow the Plymouth hit parade but couldn’t stop it.
Cody Gamble had four hits including a triple and double, Brayden Davidson doubled as well as part of a four hit night, and Martin Dyrcz had two doubles as part of his three hits. Maybe the biggest night at the plate was Trent Briles who came off the bench to go three for three with five RBI’s.
“It’s something that we talked about on the way over was getting out to an early lead, we havent done that much this year,” said Plymouth head coach Ryan Wolfe. “That’s one of the things we check first and emphasize is getting on the board first. We talked about that – setting an early tone. We feel like we have the kind of team that could contend for a conference title with the guys we have some guys on the bench that can come on and pinch hit a good mix of speed and power.”
Plymouth starter and winner Brayden Davidson pitched three innings of no hit ball but was touched for four runs in the fourth. Gamble came on to get through to the seventh, and with the bases loaded in the seventh and one out Brandon Milligan came on and closed out the win for Plymouth.
“When you have that cushion you can relax and know that you just have to throw strikes get some ground balls and let your defense do the work,” “Brayden did a good job, we’re going to need Cody a little later in the week so I really probably shouldn’t have let him go out there in the seventh.
“Brandon did exactly what we wanted that’s exactly what he does, throw a lot of strikes. We didn’t want to give up a lot of freebies in that situation and he’s going to throw strikes.”
Plymouth will take on Concord in an NLC game at Dunlap on Wednesday.
LINESCORE
Plymouth 5 2 0 1 3 2 3 16-19-5
Elk. Mem. 0 0 0 4 0 2 0 6-4-3
WP – Brayden Davidson. LP – Scottie Clark. 3B – Cody Gamble (P). 2B – Gamble (P), Davidson (P), Dyrcz 2 (P).
