Cavs take advantage of Spartans mistakes

HOLLIS – The Hollis/Brookline High School baseball team was hitting too many fly balls.

Through the first five innings of Wednesday’s game against Milford, the Cavaliers had put 16 balls into play, with six of those counting for fly outs.

H/B coach Ryan Coulter could be heard from his spot in the third-base coaching box, imploring his team to put the ball on the ground.

Finally, the Cavs did, and just in time, too.

Down 5-2 with two out in the bottom of the seventh inning, H/B hit four ground balls, two of which went for infield hits and two more turned into Milford errors, leading to three H/B runs to force extra innings.

The Cavs scored another unearned run in the eighth to take a 6-5 win in Class I action.

“That’s what we’ve been preaching all year, hit the ball hard on the ground and make them make some plays,” Coulter said. “A lot of things can happen when you hit the ball on the ground. Fly balls are outs. If we hit it on the ground, they could boot it.”

Boot it the Spartans did. Milford committed five errors, leading to five unearned runs. H/B’s lone earned run came on a solo home run by Kenny Glover in the bottom of the sixth inning.

“Pitching did well for us, but we didn’t make the plays behind them and it cost us,” Milford coach Bret Jepson said. “We’re young and this is exactly what happens when you’re young. You make mistakes. We just have to make the plays.”

The Spartans got solid pitching performances from both Matt Caravella and Logan Danforth, both of whom pitched four innings each, combing for four strikeouts, three walks and seven hits.

“We threw strikes,” Jepson said. “Matt did a nice job of keeping us in the ballgame early. We brought in Logan and Logan threw strikes. When you throw strikes, and they hit the ball, but we had five errors at the end that were costly.”

Milford managed just three hits, but two of them did some damage.

After H/B took a 1-0 lead in its half of the second, Milford scored three unearned runs in the top of the third. One of those came off a triple by Matt Scott that went to the deepest part of center field.

Bryan Airoldi made it 5-1 with a two-run home run in the top of the sixth inning off Justin Dapolito, who gave up a walk right before the home run, but bounced back to retire the final nine batters he faced.

Dapolito was one of four H/B pitchers to get in the game, going three innings with four strikeouts. Mike Chase also struck out four despite only pitching one inning, thanks to a dropped third strike on one of the punch outs.

Chase also legged out a two-out infield single in the bottom of the seventh to keep the Cavs alive, and went to second when Danforth’s pickoff attempt got by Airoldi at first and went to the fence.

Kevin Chase followed by reaching on an error, sending Mike Chase to third. Clifford then hit a grounder to short, but beat out the throw with a head-first slide, scoring Mike Chase to make it 5-3.

The Spartans intentionally walked Glover to load the bases, and Dapolito followed by hitting a scorcher to John Forte at third. The ball caromed into left field, allowing Kevin Chase and Clifford to score to tie the game.

Danforth got Ethan Schultz to pop out to end the inning, and he retired the first two batters in the bottom of the eighth.

But Justin Page reached on an error and then stole second to get into scoring position. Mike Chase followed with a single through the left side of the infield and Page beat the throw home.

“We needed this win,” Coulter said. “I think this is going to lead to some confidence. It was a good team effort, and everyone got in the game. Everyone had a part, so I’m hoping this will carry over.”

For Milford, it’s a painful experience that a young team will need to learn from.

“We knew this was going to be like this (this season),” Jepson said. “You’d have liked to grab this one here, but it’s going to happen.”

Milford is off until April 28, when it plays at Pelham. H/B doesn’t play again until April 30 at Souhegan.