After losing a tight decision in extra innings to the Bishop Guertin Cardinals from Nashua last week, the Londonderry High baseball squad got itself back to the winning track with defeats against Concord and Pinkerton later that week to get its Division I record up to 6-1.
It took 10 full innings for the Bishop Guertin bunch to dispose of the Lancers by a 7-5 score at LHS Wednesday, April 20, thus ending the LHS crew’s season-opening four-game winning streak.
The visitors led 1-0 after one inning, 2-0 after four, 2-1 at the completion of five frames, and 3-1 rolling into the latter half of the seventh.
The LHS crew plated the two runs they needed to knot the score at 3-3 in that bottom of the seventh, and extra innings were required.
The 3-3 deadlock wasn’t busted until the top of the 10th when BG scored four times, and the Lancers were only able to answer with two runs in the bottom of the 10th as their comeback effort fell short.
Four LHS pitchers combined for nine strikeouts, but they also walked eight Guertin hitters. And the offense was paced by three hits and a run driven in by Xander Laplante and two hits from Anthony Pirolli.
The Lancers got back on the winning course – behind a second straight strong pitching performance from senior southpaw Noah Tavano – in a 6-1 drubbing of the Concord High Crimson Tide in the state capital on Friday, April 22.
The locals snagged a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth, but Concord plated the equalizer in the latter half of that frame to sit the score at 1-1.
However, the LHS offense took the game over with one more run in the top of the fifth, three more in the sixth, and a final one in the seventh to make it a 6-1 contest.
Londonderry bashed out 11 hits in claiming the win, with Jimmy Zimolka, Brody Dupuis, and Tim McEacharn each slapping two of them.
The Lancers moved their 2016 mark to 6-1 on Saturday, April 23, with a second win over PA in just a week. The most recent success was a 5-4 edging of the academy bunch.
The struggling Astros (2-4) had a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, but Londonderry got the tying run in the bottom of the third.
Pinkerton went back up by a run – but only briefly – by scoring once in the top of the fifth – before the Lancers got four runs across in the latter half of that frame to make it a 5-2 game.
The academy side got two of those runs back in the top of the sixth inning, but left two runners on the bases in the seventh as its comeback effort fell short.
The Lancers received a strong five-plus innings of mound-work from Nick Musto and a big two-run single from sophomore Anthony Pirolli in the decisive fifth frame. All five of the winning side’s runs were unearned, leaving PA pitcher John Polichetti and his teammates with a number of reasons to feel frustrated.
Londonderry finished with just five hits – from five different sources – while Pinkerton only managed six.
The LHS contingent then bounded into this week aiming at moving its season record up to 7-1 with a win against a tough Exeter High crew in Londonderry on Monday, April 25.
But that victory wasn’t forthcoming for the team, which took a 5-1 loss on the chin from an Exeter contingent that scored four times in the top half of the third inning and once more in the top of the fourth.
The Lancers were held to just four hits in the contest, with each coming from a different source. The lone LHS run was driven in by senior Jimmy Zimolka.
Lancer junior Brody Dupuis had two of the 11 hits during the team’s game against Concord last week.