MANSFIELD — After falling against Manchester on April 8, the E.O. Smith Panthers baseball team returned to the diamond for the first time in a week, hosting the Bristol Eastern Lancers on Monday afternoon. E.O. Smith was looking for its first win of the year, while Bristol Eastern was looking to snap its four-game losing streak.
E.O. Smith won 9-2 against Bristol Eastern to win its first game of the season. E.O. Smith improved to 1-1 with the win, while Bristol Eastern fell to 0-5.
E.O. Smith freshman Riley Certo earned the win, pitching a complete game with 12 strikeouts. He gave up five hits and one earned run over seven innings.
E.O. Smith head coach Hunter Hamlin said he was impressed with Certo's performance in the second and third innings when he gave up no runs after Bristol Eastern had runners in scoring position with less than two outs. He added that Certo keeping the hitters off balance is why
Bristol Eastern struggled at the plate due to him being dominant with his fastball and changeup on the outside corners.
“He’s got a running fastball all that tails in on guys or tails away from lefties as well,” Hamlin said. “His changeup has the same action but comes down. It’s so great to have a freshman be able to come out and locate two pitches like that because it really keeps the batters on their feet when we’re going to a change up the first pitch, and they’re seeing a dead red fastball and swinging through it. We can go anywhere next.”
On the mound, Certo said Bristol Eastern couldn’t catch up to his fastball due to his velocity.
“When I got ahead with the fastball, I really worked on the changeup and got them out in front,” Certo said.
Pitching was the name of the game, as E.O. Smith was up 2-1 through five innings.
E.O. Smith jumped out to a 2-0 after the first inning. After the next two innings were scoreless, Bristol Eastern scored a run in the fourth inning on a base hit to right field on the first pitch, setting up first and third with two outs. Certo got out of the jam by getting Bristol Eastern to ground out to third on the first pitch.
Although E.O. Smith hadn’t scored since the first inning, their offense came alive in the sixth when it scored all seven runs with two outs.
E.O. Smith loaded the bases with one out after sophomore Gavin DeForest's infield single, sophomore Zach Pugliese's base hit, and freshman Pratts Eugenio's walk.
After freshman Luke Drasdis struck out, sophomore Cameron Belanger delivered with a two-run RBI single to right field. Freshman Zachary Embser got a two-run RBI double to give E.O. Smith a 6-1 lead. Sophomore Gavin Smith then added to the lead on an RBI single to the right.
In the seventh inning, Bristol Eastern loaded the bases after a base hit to center, reaching on an error from Belanger and a line drive base hit to right. However, the Lancers didn’t make the game interesting, as they only scored one run on a fielder’s choice.
Bristol Eastern head coach Steve Gaudet said that the difference in the game was timely hitting.
“When we had a chance to capitalize, we didn’t come up with a big hit,” Gaudet said. “We’ve been struggling with that. We’ve been struggling all season with our approach to the plate. We took too many strike fastballs. We just played a little timid today.”
Giovinazzo added that the team wasn’t aggressive at the plate due to not attacking fastballs early in the count and taking too many late in the count.
E.O. Smith will travel to Avon on Wednesday, while Bristol Eastern will travel to East Hartford on Friday.
