Published in the April 26, 2019 edition.
By DAN PAWLOWSKI
WAKEFIELD — Imagine having 20 hours to prepare for a divisional tilt after coming up with a huge, extra innings win against a team ranked fifth in the Boston Herald’s Div. 2 North rankings.
Just that sentence sounds exhausting.
The WMHS baseball team took on Watertown at Walsh Field yesterday after a 4-3 win over Burlington on Wednesday. The Warriors won their second in a row 4-0 to improve to 4-2 on the season. The two straight wins were an especially good response after Wakefield dropped consecutive games to Winchester and Reading last week.
“If we pitch, throw strikes and play clean defense like we’re capable of we’re going to be in games,” said Wakefield head coach Kevin Canty. “Then we just need some timely hitting and that’s what we’ve had the last two games. We’ve had opportunities – yesterday (Burlington) and today (Watertown) we took advantage of a few more than we did against Lexington and Reading; hopefully we can keep that up.”
Chris Alden had another quality start against Burlington giving up two runs in 5.1 innings.
The Warriors, trailing 3-2 in the 7th, were down to their final strike twice. Freshman Zach Kent got on base and sophomore Cal Tryder singled him to second, that set up Tommy Mottl who brought home Kent with a single tying the game.
Gabe Sanders, who entered in the 6th, has really thrived in relief. When Sanders is firing, the Warrior bats seem to get looser and more confident late in games.
“Gabe is significantly better than pretty much anybody else in this league when he’s on and he was throwing gas so I said to the guys ‘find me one run and Gabe’s going to close this out,’” said Canty.
Danny Hurley got on in the top of the 7th. Wakefield bunted him over, setting up Anthony DeVito who ripped an RBI single to take the lead, 4-3.
It was up to Sanders to pick up the win and in many ways what felt like a save in the bottom of the 8th.
He struck out the side.
Clearly with some adrenaline still left over, the Warriors looked more locked in than wiped out yesterday.
Sophomore Jack Ryan was rolling from the start. He went five innings, scattering three hits and allowing no runs.
