GROTON, Conn. 一 The Mystic Schooners scored six of the game’s final seven runs and defeated the visiting North Shore Navigators 7-4 in New England Collegiate Baseball League action on Sunday afternoon at “The Shipyard” at Ed Harvey Field.
North Shore fell to 1-4 as it was unable to post its second consecutive win, while Mystic evened its record at 2-2.
First baseman Brody Dalton (St. Johns River State) went 2-for-4 with two RBI, including his second home run through the first five games of the summer. Right fielder Jesse Jaconski (Penn State) also recorded multiple hits to help the Navigator offense.
Four of the five North Shore pitchers to work behind Nahant native starter Nick Reiser (Bridgewater State) did not allow a hit. Peabody’s Joe Castrichini (Longwood) and Swampscott’s Pierce Friedman (Maine) bookended the bullpen with hitless and scoreless performances, each with two strikeouts. Castrichini threw 1.2 innings, while Friedman worked a 1-2-3 eighth to give his offense a chance late.
North Shore got the scoring going in the first inning for the second consecutive day, as Dalton socked a two-out pitch from Mystic starter Daniel Cohen (Yale) out to straightaway center.
Mystic got the run back during its first at-bats after second baseman Jack Harley (Virginia Tech) reached on a one-out error and scored on an error subsequent to left fielder Nick Locurto (Virginia Tech) stealing second base.
After Cohen and Reiser each worked through scoreless second innings, the teams traded two-run spots in the third and entered the middle frames in a 3-3 tie.
The Navs started the top half of the third with second baseman Jack Gold (Pomona-Pitzer) ringing a leadoff double into the right-center gap and shortstop Jack Rickheim (Harvard) continuing the line with an infield single. Left fielder Sam Parks (Stonehill) drove in the go-ahead RBI on a grounder to second before Dalton knocked a run-scoring single two batters later.
Reiser struck out two of the first three batters he faced in the bottom of the frame, but two-out RBI singles by Locurto and shortstop Anthony Belisario (UConn) helped the hosts level the score.
Mystic took its first lead in the fourth as right fielder Tyree Jackson (Houston Christian) hit a two-run homer out to left field, scoring third baseman Jake Kernodle (Princeton) who led off the inning with an infield single.
The Navs halved Mystic’s 5-3 lead in the sixth. Catcher Aidan Sengenberger (Stonehill) drew a leadoff walk, and after Schooners reliever Andrew Cutler (George Washington) set down the next two, third baseman Simmi Whitehill (Monmouth) cranked a run-scoring double out of center fielder Kaiden Dossa’s (Yale) reach in the left-center alley.
After back-to-back walks started the Mystic sixth, Jackson hit a sac fly to left made it a 6-4 game. In the seventh, first baseman Christian Scanlon’s (Merrimack) two-out RBI double scored catcher Davis Johnson (Notre Dame) from first.
North Shore was unable to capitalize on getting two runners aboard in both the seventh and eighth, including consecutive free passes to center fielder Brooks Wright (Louisiana) and Whitehill to begin the latter of those frames. Mystic closer Toby Scheidt (Bryant) saved the victory for Cutler, recording four of the final five outs by way of the strikeout.
The Navs return home to Fraser Field for back-to-back and four of its next six games, beginning with a 6:05 p.m. first pitch on Monday against the Danbury Westerners.