Defense, timely hitting lifts Rochester Post 7 past Merrimack Post 98
MERRIMACK – The Rochester Post 7 baseball team didn’t take advantage of every opportunity it had Tuesday against Merrimack Post 98.
MERRIMACK – The Rochester Post 7 baseball team didn’t take advantage of every opportunity it had Tuesday against Merrimack Post 98.
But Post 7 did capitalize enough, and kept Post 98 from capitalizing on its own opportunities, to pull out a 7-1 win at Merrimack High School in American Legion Senior District B action.
Rochester was also strong defensively, getting out of some tough situations, including in both the sixth and the seventh innings, as Merrimack stranded 14 runners in its lowest scoring game of the season.
Justin Jewell led the way offensively for Rochester (4-2), going 3 for 3 with three triples, three runs scored and a RBI, while Josh Gagne had two hits, including a triple, with three RBIs. Loukas Brigham picked up the winning by scattering 10 hits over six innings with three strikeouts and two walks.
“We made some plays defensively,” Rochester coach B.J. Gagnon said. “We’ve struggled in that facet of the game, but we made plays (Tuesday) when we had to. We had that double play in the seventh.
“We’ve been getting strong innings all year long from Loukas. I’d like to see him get a little deeper into the game, but 104 pitches through six, we’ll try to get a little more efficient than that. All in all, we played our best defensive game I think.”
Merrimack (4-5) got a big game from Taylor Black, who was 4 for 5 with a triple and a run scored, while Mickey Gasper was 2 for 2 with an RBI and three walks. But Post 98 struggled when it had opportunities.
In the first, third and fifth innings, Merrimack had two runners on – including one at third – with two out and couldn’t capitalize. In the sixth, it loaded the bases with two outs and couldn’t score, and in the seventh, Post 98 put two runners on with no outs, but Rochester was able to escape thanks in part to a double play.
“We were sloppy from start to finish,” Merrimack coach Cliff Hicks said. “We had decent approaches at the plate and had some hard-hit balls that just didn’t go our way. It definitely seemed like we had guys on. Every game we’ve been scoring runs, but (Tuesday) was a day we couldn’t crack that. We couldn’t find a place to do it.”
Kyle Lawson suffered the loss, allowing five runs on four hits, four walks and five strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings. Joe Soraghan came on in relief and got Merrimack out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fifth, and finished with two runs allowed on six hits and a walk in 4 2/3 innings.
“Pitching, we haven’t been able to link together a few good games in a row,” Hicks said. “We’ll have a game where we have nice pitching and then the next game we’ll walk guys or be in hitter counts, even if we put a good pitch in a good spot, they’re going to hit it. That was a problem for us.”
Merrimack was able to prevent Rochester from having a big inning, as Post 7 scored twice in both the second and the fifth and put up single runs in the first, seventh and ninth.
But Rochester scored its first run after a Merrimack error kept the inning going, and of Post 7’s five walks, three of those runners came around to score. And in both the seventh and ninth, Jewell tripled and was driven in both times, by Mac Struthers and Gagne, respectively.
“We left 12 guys on base (Monday) against Hudson,” Gagnon said. “We’ve got to better than that and (Tuesday) we were better than that. We’ll take it and move forward. This is still a group of kids that can play good baseball and we need to start believing that and show up to the park ready to play.”
