LYNN — There were 13 strikeouts between the two pitchers and only six hits. In other words, this was a scintillating high school baseball pitchers’ duel.
However, only one team could win Sunday, and that was St. John’s Prep, which raised its record to 9-7 with a 2-0 non-league win over St. Mary’s.
Braeden Hurley spun a gem for the Eagles. The rangy left-hander faced the bare minimum of hitters over seven innings. He gave up one hit – an infield single to Jacob Peterson in the fifth inning. However, Hurley erased pinch-runner Micah Hashikawa on a pickoff play, and then retired the remainder of the Spartan batters in order.
Meanwhile, Josh Doney probably deserved much better for his efforts. The Eagles didn’t exactly bash the ball around. They only got five hits, and scored both runs – in the first and seventh innings – on only one hit apiece.
“He’s pitched like that all year,” said St. Mary’s coach Derek Dana. “Both kids were excellent. It was a very clean game by both pitchers.”
“It’s always a great game when we play each other,” said Prep coach Danny Letarte. “Their pitcher threw a great game. Fortunately, our guy threw pretty well, too.”
St. John’s jumped on Doney immediately. Leadoff hitter Gavin Gold walked and went to second when Cam LaGrassa was hit by a pitch.
Will Shaheen followed with a base hit to left, with Gold coming home from second, and it was 1-0 Eagles.
Doney settled down after that, getting the final three outs of the inning, and only allowed three hits over the next five innings. The Eagles couldn’t muster any of them back-to-back, and Doney was around the plate all day.
Hurley was even stingier.
“My changeup was moving pretty good,” he said. “I lost the feel for my curveball early, but I found it as the game went on.”
As effective as Hurley was, Dana wasn’t totally pleased with his team’s offensive approach.
“We tried to pull too many of his pitches, and you can’t do that against a pitcher like him,” he said. “Look at their approach. All the balls they hit hard were taken the other way. We can win with a donut up there.”
Hurley’s one mistake came in the sixth inning, and even that worked out for him. Doney got hold of a flat fastball and hit it on a line to right field. But Christian Rosa caught up with it, and made a nice over-the-head coach for the third out.
“That was a great play,” said Letarte. “That was a triple. You don’t want to be pitching with a man on third in that situation, even with two outs.”
The Prep broke through for another run in the seventh, almost exactly the same way it did in the first. Catcher Jack Growney led off with a walk, and moved to second on Gold’s sacrifice bunt.
For the second time in the game, LaGrassa was hit by a pitch, and Shaheen’s grounder to second was not hit hard enough to turn a double play. Growney moved to third on the play.
Aidan Driscoll hit one up the middle for the run-scoring single, making the score 2-0.
St. Mary’s, 14-3, is back in action Monday at home against Hamilton-Wenham (4 p.m.).
