Monday, May 23, 2016 Story and photo by Aidan Joly
Free baserunners for CBA proved to be costly in getting the win.
The CBA Brothers defeated the Saratoga Blue Streaks on Saturday afternoon in the Section 2 semifinal at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium by a score of 5-2.
Saratoga struck first taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, but CBA struck back with three runs in the bottom half, and the Saratoga bats were shut down for the rest of the game by the pitching of Elliott Raimo. He threw a complete game, giving up two runs on eight hits. He walked just one and struck out seven.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Raimo, as he ran into trouble in the sixth inning.
Saratoga led off the inning with a single and a walk, putting runners on first and second with no outs. Raimo would get out of this jam with a pair of strikeouts and a fly out, only giving up one run in the process.
“I wasn’t trying to do too much, letting the defense work, we had a three run lead, so that definitely helped me calm down a little bit,” Raimo said.
A key on offense for CBA was having great plate vision all day, as they would draw seven walks in the game, and six of them came in the first three innings. Saratoga starting pitcher Corey MacArthur struggled with this, as he was pulled after just 2 ⅔ innings, gave up four runs on just two hits, and walked six. He also struck out four hitters.
“It was big. Like I said, we compete for every inning, they put up one in the first inning, I told the guys that we needed to do work to win the first inning, and we did our job,” CBA head coach Casey O’Connor said.
Saratoga head coach Andy Cuthbertson also weighed in on this.
“The tale of the story was the 10 freebies we gave them, in terms of walks and hit by pitches,” he said. “We gave them a ton of opportunities, tried our best to trade opportunities, but came out of the losing end of that.”
In the first inning for CBA, MacArthur was wild, recording four of his walks, hitting a batter and throwing a wild pitch. CBA scored three runs, and batted around, sending all nine starters to the plate.
Ian Beauregard led CBA on the offensive side, going 1-3 with an RBI single.
Jake Fauler led Saratoga with the bat, going 3-4. He will return for the 2017 season, as he is a junior this year. Brad Hipsley will also return for 2017, where he will look to build on his hot finish to the year. He went 2-3 with an RBI single.
CBA now moves on to the Section 2 final, and will play Shenendehowa in that game. Those two teams entered the sectionals as the one and two seeds. The final will be played on Thursday, May 26th, also at Joe Bruno Stadium in Troy. Game time is set for 7 p.m.