LYNN — It was a hot summer evening at Fraser Field as No. 2 Greater Lynn took on No. 7 Medford Tuesday. Spoiler alert, its bats were also hot en route to a 10-1 win.
Lynn Coach Leon Elwell talked about the pitchers’ duel, with Lynn’s Jake Peterson stealing the show.
“It was a close game at the beginning and I wasn’t sure how we would handle a bit of adversity since we’ve had some easy wins along the way,” Elwell said. “Tonight, the guy Medford started was going pitch for pitch with Jake. They blinked first and we took advantage.”
With two outs and no batters on in a scoreless ballgame, it looked like Medford was going to have another shutout inning before Lynn’s Michael DeMaino hit a single to center field. He stole second before reaching third on a passed ball for a home-team spark.
Enter Nate Cutone. With two strikes, Cutone executed a hard RBI-single to left field to drive in DeMaino (1-0).
“There were two outs and we had nothing going on, then Michael gets a base hit, steals second, and gets to third on a passed ball,” Elwell said. “Then, Nate has two strikes on him and he puts the bat on the ball. It was a hard-contact base hit and we got on the board 1-0.”
Medford answered back in the next inning on an error (1-1).
The scoreboard stood still until the fifth inning. To the home fans’ delight, that didn’t last long as Lynn scored eight runs in the inning.
“A lot of positive things in that inning. We were in a lot of 0-2, 1-2 counts and we talk to the boys all the time about putting the ball in play and making contact, and forcing the other team to make plays,” Elwell said. “We had some balls dropped for us, but there were a lot of two-strikes hitting today.”
Elwell couldn’t have been happier with the timely hitting.
“[Timely hitting] was one of our strengths today,” Elwell said. “We’ve been ahead in a lot of the games we played, but tonight, we played solid defense and had an overall strong effort.”
Jordan Rodriguez, DeMaino, Cutone, Peterson, Kyle Doney, and Andy Beras all recorded at least one RBI in the inning.
That said, it was highlighted by a two-RBI triple from Beras with a shot to center field that reached the fence.
“We go game by game and identify what is going to work for us on the given day,” Elwell said.
Hot bats aside, Peterson (11 strikeouts) wasn’t bad, either. He was throwing all kinds of different pitches and stumping Medford.
“Jake dominated today. He’s our number one and he proved it today,” Elwell said. “He had a lot of first-pitch strikes today which really helped him. It set up the rest of the at-bat getting ahead in the count.”
Elwell also talked about the togetherness of his team.
“We have a core group of guys and a lot of new faces, but they’re a tight-knit group,” Elwell said. “No one works harder than this group. They work hard in the rain up at Extra Innings Hitting. We went out for pizza last night and they’ve been over at my house a week ago. You have to care and love each other, or else it won’t work.”
With that mindset present, Lynn is set to return home Thursday at 5:30 p.m. (TBD).
