Baseball v. Maine Farmington
Castleton baseball extended their winning streak to 11 games over the weekend as they took down the University of Maine Farmington four times in two days.
With the wins this weekend the Spartans finished conference play at 20-4 and claimed the number one seed going into the North Atlantic Conference playoffs.
The Castleton bats got off to an early start but then had to battle late in game one to weather the Farmington comeback and win 11-9.
Tyler Hoare ignited the scoring off for the Spartans by connecting for a double to left center field that scored Jimmy Buckley. The Spartans would add four more before the end of the inning.
The Spartans weren’t done there, scoring three more runs in the top of the third inning to make it an eight run ball game. The Beavers responded with two of their own in the bottom of the inning with RBIs from Sean Cabaniss and Dustin McCrossin.
Nick Swim made it an 11-2 game with a double to center field that scored both Taylor Vile and Tyler Lord. That ended the Spartan scoring but the Beaver bats were just warming up.
The Beavers scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth, cutting the lead to six before erupting for a four run sixth inning and pulling within two. But that was as close as they came. Cabaniss tallied his fourth RBI of the day while McCrossin and Tom Grady tallied their second.
Spartan pitcher Steven Jurkiewicz picked up his team-best sixth win of the season after tossing five innings with five earned runs and three strikeouts. Bradley Jackson gave up five earned runs in two innings pitched in the loss.
In the second outing the Spartan sluggers were hot and they did not stop, trampling the Beavers 15-2.
Sam Spencer held the Beavers to two runs in six innings pitched while his teammates provided plenty of insurance.
The Spartans took a dominating six run lead in the first two innings, only to scored seven more in the following two frames taking a deciding 13-2 lead.
In the first Nate Swahn went yard with a man on, scoring two and capping off the four run inning.
The Castleton hitters kept stringing together hits and in the fourth they capitalized on a series of errors by Farmington. Swahn stole second then advanced to third on the error. Swahn would score the next play ending the scoring for the fourth inning.
The Spartans added two more in sixth decisively taking the second game in day one of the back-to-back double headers.
On day two Castleton’s Luke Salerno got the nod from Head Coach Ted Shipley and a pitching duel broke out. Salerno had 9 strikeouts and pitched a complete game in the win while Maine-Farmington’s Riley Chickering only allowed three hits and also pitched a complete game in the losing effort.
Errico put Castleton on the board in the top of the first scoring Vile and the very next at bat Swahn ripped a double scoring Errico and those were all the runs the Spartans needed to secure a 2-1 victory in the first of two games on the day.
The second game of the day resulted in another close finish. With the score knotted at five apiece in the top of the seventh inning Castleton infielder Dylan Watts
rocketed a ground ball to the right side of the infield forcing an error on Nick Attaliades-Ryan allowing Nick Patierne to score putting the Spartans up by one. Later in the inning Vile would single scoring a run and extending the lead to two.
The beavers would not go away quietly. Grady flied out in the bottom of the seventh but recorded an RBI cutting the lead in half. Maine-Farmington’s Grayson Beressi had a chance to tie the game with two outs but Castleton’s TJ Fearon got him to fly out earning the save for the final game of the weekend.