SWAMPSCOTT — It’s still early in the season but things are looking good for the Swampscott baseball team. Wednesday afternoon at Swampscott Middle School, the Big Blue fired on all cylinders and rolled past Malden for a 12-0 win.
With the win, Swampscott remains undefeated on the season at 3-0. Sophomore starting pitcher Nick Reiser tossed five shutout innings for the Big Blue. Reiser tallied six strikeouts and allowed four hits.
“Nick got ahead in his counts early,” Swampscott coach Jason Calichman said. “He got ahead of most batters, which is really good. His curveball was working but I thought his best pitch today was his fastball. I thought he just really got ahead of batters. He pitched with a lead. He pitched with a lot of command and a lot of poise.”
Senior Joey Layne came on in relief and pitched the sixth and seventh innings. Layne made quick work of the Golden Tornadoes in the sixth, allowed a leadoff double in the seventh but bounced back to retire the next three batters to finish the win.
The Big Blue made the most of their chances in the early going, putting six runs on the board in the first and four more in the second. Facing a 10-run deficit, the Golden Tornadoes played from behind and couldn’t crawl back in.
Malden threatened with the bases loaded in the top half of the first inning. The first two runners reached on an infield error and hit batsman. After a flyout to centerfield, Malden added a single to load the bags. Reiser and the Big Blue worked their way out of the jam when Swampscott turned a 6-4-3 double play to end the threat.
A RBI single from Jonathan Oriakhi got Swampscott on the board, scoring Ryan Graciale with the game’s first run. Zach Elwell followed suit with a 2-RBI single, bringing Dylan January and Graham Inzana home to bump the advantage to 3-0. A RBI double from Anthony Rakauskas kept the rally alive, making it a 4-0 lead. Back to back RBI singles from Maxx Cooper and Drew Olivieri pushed the lead to 6-0 after one inning.
“We put the ball in play and hit the ball hard,” Calichman said. “They had the bases loaded in the first inning and we got out of it. We scored six in the first inning. That helps us set the tone right there. We turned a nice double play up the middle to get us out of that jam.”
Swampscott added four runs in the bottom of the second. Inzana led the inning with a triple. Oriakhi and Elwell drew back to back walks to load the bases for Rakauskas, who laced a 2-RBI single. A sacrifice-fly from Olivieri’s bat and a RBI double from Graciale gave Swampscott a 10-0 lead after two innings.
“We talked about capitalizing early,” Calichman added. “We fell behind in our first two games. We really wanted to get ahead today and play from ahead. We certainly did that by scoring 10 runs in the first two innings.”
Jack Leahy roped a RBI single in the bottom of the third to make it an 11-0 lead. Tristan Reenstierna drew a walk with the bases loaded on the next at-bat, rounding out the Swampscott scoring.
Swampscott went down in order in the bottom of the fourth, the only inning where the Big Blue didn’t get a runner on base.
“The bottom of our order has been exceptional early on,” Calichman said. “Our 6 through 9 hitters have been producing and getting on base for when the top of the order gets back around. If we can keep that deep lineup and keep that production, we’ll be in good shape.”
Swampscott will look to grab its fourth win of the season Friday morning (10) when the Big Blue host Gloucester.
“Gloucester’s always tough,” Calichman said. “We always play them tough. It’s always a good battle, it always seems to come down to the last inning. They play tough, they’re well coached. I haven’t seen what they’ve done this year but we’ll have to play our best game to beat them.”
