St. Mary’s shakes off slow start, Hamilton-Wenham

LYNN – The St. Mary’s baseball team suffered from a case of rust in the first inning Sunday at Fraser Field in its opening game of the Division 3 North tourney against Hamilton-Wenham.The Spartans found themselves in a quick 2-0 hole after half an inning to the upset-minded Generals. But once St. Mary’s shook off the six days of rust following its Clancy Tournament win, order was restored as the Spartans polished off an efficient 6-3 victory to reach tonight’s (7 at Fraser) quarterfinals against Greater Lowell.”We hadn’t played in what, six days, I think, so there was definitely a little rust to get off,” St. Mary’s coach Derek Dana said. “But after the slow start, we played pretty well.”St. Mary’s (17-4) got its wakeup call with one out in the bottom of the second when right fielder Nick Day hit a moon shot that kept carrying, eventually clearing the left-field fence for a solo homer that cut the H-W lead to 2-1.”Nick’s homer definitely was huge,” Dana said. “It gave us a big boost and the guys started getting some better at-bats after that.”The Generals (8-15) had taken the 2-0 lead in the first against Kurtis White thanks to an RBI single from Jim Love and an RBI double by Matt Cook. White hit the next batter before proceeding to shut down the visitors for the rest of the game.”That’s just what Kurtis has done for us all season,” Dana said. “He threw strikes.”In the third, St. Mary’s took the lead for good by notching a pair of runs. White led off the inning with a walk but was thrown out trying to go from first to third on Jeremy Tranfaglia’s bunt single.Alex Glover was hit by a pitch before an errant pickoff throw scored Tranfaglia and put Glover on third. A walk to Justin Sharkey was followed by a wild pitch to score the speedy Glover for a 3-2 St. Mary’s lead.”I think there we tried to do a little bit too much,” Dana said of his team’s adventure on the basepaths.White breezed through the fourth before the Spartans added some insurance in the home half of the inning.Joe Kasper walked and was lifted for pinch runner Zach Paone, who was sacrificed to second and went to third on a wild pitch. White drove him home with a sharp single to make it 4-2.Tranfaglia walked and Glover reached on a fielder’s choice before Sharkey singled to left, scoring two more runs for a 6-2 lead after four.The Spartans seemed to have things on cruise control from there, breezing into the seventh with their four-run lead. But the Generals would make them work for the final three outs.White struck out Pat Twomey to lead things off. Jake Prince followed with a single that spelled the end of White’s day as Alex Fiste came on in relief.Pat Hendrickson greeted Fiste with a single to put runners on the corners. A passed ball allowed Prince to score and cut the lead to 6-3. However, following a walk to Ryan Ropes, Fiste got the next two batters on groundouts to end things.