Cape Elizabeth 7
Yarmouth 3
The Cape Elizabeth baseball team scored four runs with two squeeze plays and piled up seven runs to top Yarmouth, 7-3 on Monday. Matt Rand drove in four runs for the Capers and Andrew Guay earned his fourth win of the season.
“I’m thrilled,” Cape coach Chris Hayward said of the win. “That’s a team worth a lot of (Heal) points. That may give us enough to make the playoffs. We of course want to win a few more coming home, but we executed the little stuff today.”
The Capers grabbed the early lead with a pair of runs in the second inning. Will Pierce started the inning off with a single. Sam St. Germain followed that up with a walk. Ryan Boyington moved the runners over with a sacrifice back to the mound. Hayward then called for a suicide squeeze. Ezra Wolfinger laid the bunt down. Both Pierce and St. Germain scored on the play.
The Capers held their 2-0 advantage until the fifth. Jeff Kuklewicz walked to start the inning, but was cut down on the base paths. Sanders Wommock walked of the inning and then stole second. Chan Arndt then reached on an error. After getting the second out and walking Travis Merrill to load the bases, Yarmouth’s Luke Pierce tied the game with one swing and another error by the second baseman.
The tie didn’t last long.
In the bottom half of the fifth inning, the Capers took the lead for good. Boyington led off with a walk. After Wolfinger struck out, Derek Laflin doubled and Cape had two runners in scoring position with just one out. Rand came to the plate and laid down a perfect bunt for another suicide squeeze. Yarmouth threw to first to get Rand, but an errant throw after that allowed a second run to score.
“Two times we squeezed and scored two runs both times,” Hayward said. “If we can get four runs off two bunts you have to be happy about that. Suicide squeezes are hard to defend, they’re pretty much impossible to defend when the timing is right. That’s something we pride ourselves on and we did a nice job.”
Zach Breed followed the two-run bunt with a single and took second on an error. Kyle Piscopo singled to score Breed from second to give the Capers a 5-2 lead.
Cape Elizabeth extended their lead in the sixth with two more runs. Boyington walked and Wolfinger singled to get things started. Adam Danielson also walked to load the bases. Rand took an 0-1 offering and singled to drive in Boyington and Wolfinger and give his team a 7-2 lead.
Yarmouth managed to get one of those runs back in the seventh when Luke Pierce singled to score Arndt. But that was as close as they would get.
Guay was able to keep the Clippers off balance for most of the game to improve his season record to 4-2.
“Andrew has been very solid all year long,” Hayward said. “We have been pleased with his progress. He is asking to throw more changeups, which is great, and he’s been down in the zone a lot more consistently this year, so we’re very happy with who we have on the mound this year.”
The win will likely vault the Capers up in the Heal Points as they seek their eighth straight tournament appearance.
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