The Hyannis Harbor Hawks won another tight game, against the Wareham Gatemen on Friday night. With a hot offensive lineup, the Hawks (10-6-1) put up eight runs. Pitching was strong at some points throughout the game but allowed six runs in total. Five of the six runs were scored at the top of the ninth.
Hyannis posted runs early in the game. In the third, Kane Kepley led off the inning with a double down the right field line. Alex Lodise hit a single to advance Kepley, and with a throwing error made by Wareham’s (11-5) right fielder, Kepley made it home safely. With Lodise on third and Jon Jon Gazdar aboard, Eric Snow hit a 377-foot double off the top of the fence, recording two RBI.
“It’s baseball,” head coach Mitch Karraker said. “It goes up and down … right now we are doing pretty good. Part of that is our work … the guys putting up what they need to and showing up on the field.”
In the first, Kepley led off with a walk. Lodise hit a stand-up double down the left field line to advance Kepley to third. With both runners in scoring position, Gazdar hit a double down the right field line. Kepley and Lodise both touched home. Wareham got out of the jam, quickly allowing only the two runs.
“I think because there’s so many good hitters on this team that we just feed off of each other. We start to get in a rhythm, just like we did tonight,” Lodise said. “We had nine hits and it’s one after another. It makes it easier on each other.”
Again in the fourth, two more runs were recorded for the Harbor Hawks. Josh Tate recorded his first hit on Cape, scoring on a fielder's choice to third. The Gatemen’s pitching staff struggled. with bases loaded it walked Mason White, allowing Lodise to score. At the end of the fourth, the score was 7-1 Hyannis.
Offensively in the second, a Gateman hit a no-doubter over the right field fence. Later in the inning, Nick Groves dove backward to complete a fantastic catch, reaching over his head. The score was 2-1 Hawks in the bottom of the second. Tate was then subbed in for Groves in center and then hit in the nine-hole the rest of the game.
“I was just trying to enjoy the game with the guys. I wasn’t actually supposed to play [Friday] because I got here [Thursday],” Tate said. “[I want to] just keep playing, keep having fun and keep doing what we’re doing.”
The pitching staff held Wareham to a close ball game. Blaine Wynk from Ohio State started on the mound for the Hawks. His appearance lasted a total of four innings with only three hits allowed. He gave up a home run, the first run earned by the Gatemen. Cade Crossland came into relief in the fifth and only allowed one run.
Josh Och came into relief in the sixth for his first appearance in Hyannis for the Harbor Hawks. With a total of two innings under his belt, he was nearly perfect. The Gatemen didn’t register a single hit or run, but a base runner reached first via walk.
Dominick Carbone started the eighth inning, and despite walking three, he didn’t allow a run to score. The ninth inning told a different story; he allowed three runs to score, letting the Gatemen close the gap. Kade Brown came in to secure the last two outs of the ninth.
It was a solid win in Hyannis on Friday night. The final score was 8-6 Harbor Hawks. It was a team win that showed both sides of pitching and hitting. Hyannis will take on the Orleans Firebirds in Orleans on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
“One day at a time,” Karraker said. “Hopefully [the players] understand what they did well and didn’t do well and we make adjustments on those things to continue to put up good numbers.”
