Baseball: Classical’s bats silent in loss to Beverly

The pitching and defense were there, but the Classical baseball team’s struggles at the plate continued in a 1-0 loss to Beverly Friday at Beverly.Freshman pitcher Herbie Newton went six innings, striking out five and walking one.”I was very happy (with the pitching),” Classical coach Mike Zukowski said. “Herbie was very poised in his first varsity start. He spotted his pitches and threw his curve for strikes, but he didn’t get any run support.”The Rams (0-3, 0-2) also ran into a buzz saw in Beverly pitcher Eric Messina, who struck out 11 and had a no hitter going until the top of the seventh. Lead-off hitter Damien Earp spoiled the bid with a single.Beverly scored the lone run of the game in the sixth inning on a Matt Hamor RBI single. This was the Panthers’ first win. Justin Avery finished up in relif for the Rams.Gr. Lowell 6, Tech 1At Tech, the Tigers had a strong team performance despite the result. Dayan Gonzalez took the hill for Tech, and had a strong outing (5 innings, 2 hits, 3 walks, 3 runs).”We played well today, we just could not produce enough offense to come out on top in this one,” Tech coach Harold German said.Tech is now 0-3.Winthrop 8, Swampscott 3At Winthrop, the Big Blue (0-3) scattered some hits but couldn’t get much going. Swampscott was also made a couple of base-running mistakes that proved costly. Kyle Waters, Neil Lahrizi, Jake Cooper and Brendan McDonald (RBI) all had hits in the loss.Gloucester 5, Marblehead 0At Gloucester, the Magicians (1-1) could only muster two hits off Gloucester pitching.