Saugus baseball falls to Gloucester

SAUGUS – Coming into Thursday’s game at World Series Park, Saugus had a cumulative batting average of .370 but no wins to show for its efforts.The Sachems didn’t do anything to hurt that average on Thursday but once again came up short as Gloucester’s Caulin Rogers was 4-for-5 with three RBI and three runs scored in a 9-6 Fishermen win.”It comes down to our pitchers not getting ahead,” Saugus coach Rich Angelo said. “You have to stay ahead of hitters like them.”Gloucester (4-1, 4-0 Northeastern Conference/South) turned to Rogers out of the bullpen to help steady the tide early. And he responded with nearly five innings of steady relief.”Saugus really hit the ball well,” Gloucester coach Joe Orlando said. “We thought that Alex (Silveira) would go a little longer than he did but Caulin came in and did a great job.”The Fishermen jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first on the back of three walks, an error and a Rogers double. Saugus (0-4) got a run back in the bottom half thanks to a two-out single from Ty Kennedy that plated Dave Witham.Rogers struck again in the second as he blasted a 2-run homer to left for a 5-1 lead. Silveira would hand a run back to the Sachems in the bottom half as four walks led to Dom DiPesa crossing.The Fishermen upped the lead back to 7-2 in the third on a sacrifice fly and a passed ball. Saugus trimmed the lead to 7-4 in the fourth on Dan Groark’s 2-run homer off Rogers.”We just couldn’t get the key hit when we needed it,” Angelo said.Rogers belted his second homer of the game to lead off the sixth. Jeremiah Sweet added a sacrifice fly to give Gloucester a 9-4 lead.The Sachems fought back and got a pair of runs to make it 9-6 but saw Adam Philpott come on to strike out Shane Ripley to thwart the rally.