LANGDON- The Fall Mountain Wildcats were able to escape the visiting Newport Tigers in the bottom of the seventh inning with a two-out RBI-single from Tucker Wright that scored Nick Peltier to win 4-3 on Friday evening.
Fall Mountain got on the board first in the bottom-half of the first inning on an RBI-double from Kendal Heath deep to left-center that knocked in starting pitcher Hunter Paquette. Fall Mountain was ahead 1-0 after a scoreless second inning.
In the top of the third, Newport’s Cody Turgeon knocked in Kyle Fish to tie that game at one apiece. With runners on second and third and no outs, Fall Mountain was able to turn a double play and then get a strikeout to get out of the jam. In the bottom of the third, Wildcats’ Nick Peltier had a 2-RBI single up the middle to put Fall Mountain ahead, 3-1.
Newport answered in the top of the fourth with two runs of their own to tie the game once again. Jared Meyette knocked in Tigers’ starting pitcher, Kyle Rossiter, with a groundball, and Meyette later came around to score on a passed-ball.
In the top of the fifth, with the game tied 3-3, Turgeon opened up the innings with a triple to deep left, which made Fall Mountain head coach go to his reliever, Heath, moving Paquette from pitcher to second base. “I knew it was coming,” said Wildcats head coach Kyle Cavalliere. “I tried to go with Hunter as long as possible. The fifth inning… giving up that triple… I decided to get Kendal in. Getting into the later innings, you can’t give up these runs… especially in these close games because you never know what’s going to happen. Kendal’s been consistent… he’s been doing an amazing job.”
On the first play with Heath on the mound, Daniel Lee hit a chopper to second, and Paquette was able to scoop and throw home for the tag-out on Turgeon to save a run. On the play, Newport head coach, Jon Hamel, said, “The first pitcher came right in and the first play threw a strike to home to get him. It took a perfect throw.” Heath then retired the next two Newport batter to get out of the inning.
In the bottom of the sixth, Fall Mountain loaded the bases with their first three batters. However, Rossiter clamped down and struckout the next three Fall Mountain batters to get out of a big jam. “That was an absolutely huge spot,” said Jon Hamel. “Kyle Rossiter pitched an absolute gem of a game and it’s been tough because some of the games that he’s pitched we’ve let him down with our defense and I know it’s frustrating to him.”
Newport’s top of the order came up in the top of the seventh, but were only able to manage one baserunner.
In the bottom-half of the seventh, Fall Mountain’s first two batters were retired. Peltier then reached second on an infield single and an overthrow to first. Newport then chose to intentionally walk Heath to bring up Wright with two outs and runners on first and second. On the decision to walk Heath, Hamel said, “We wanted to try to avoid getting Kendal. We ended up letting one guy on and made the decision to walk Kendal… we don’t want him driving in the winning run because he puts the bat on the ball. And then the next kid kind of made us pay… he had a nice line-drive.” Wright hit the big single to left-field and Peltier was able to come around and score before the throw got to the plate to give the Wildcats the 4-3 home win.
On the close loss, Hamel said, “We came out flat with no sense of urgency… we didn’t adjust to the strike zone. We didn’t come ready to hit. This was a tough one to take when I know we are capable of so much more. They were the better team today. We let this one slip.”
On his team’s big win Friday, Cavalliere said, “The guys fought. This was our third home game where we almost had to go into extra innings. Newport is a tough team with a winning record. Overall there is not much to say that went wrong. Our defense could have been better, but hitting… I can’t ask for anything more hitting-wise. This team has completely turned around in the last seven games.”
Fall Mountain improves to 5-7 on the season and will host Monadnock on Tuesday. Newport drops to 8-5 and returns to action at Conant on Wednesday.
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