Blue Devils Continue Offensive Tear to Start Year
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Four games into the season, the Drury baseball team has 70 runs and four wins to show for their efforts.
On Friday afternoon, the Blue Devils pounded out 13 hits, including seven extra-base hits, in a 16-5 win over Mount Greylock.
J.J. Prenguber and Lucas Hamilton each tripled, and Julian Feliciano went 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles to pace Drury, which is averaging more than 17 runs per game this spring.
“We like our balance right now, one through nine,” Drury coach Rob Jutras said. “We feel like we’re just trying to stay simple, hit the ball hard. We know what we’re trying to do, and we’re just being super consistent. That helps.”
Seven Blue Devils with at least 10 at-bats are hitting .385 or better, and an eighth, Carson Rylander, is hitting .300 with six RBIs.
Rylander Friday also got the win on the mound – striking out 10 and allowing one run in 4 and a third innings.
Rylander did walk six batters, which drove up his pitch count and caused Jutras to pull him with an 11-0 lead and one out and a man on in the bottom of the fifth.
“Early on, we have a hard cap on him,” Jutras said, referring to the pitch count that dictated Rylander’s removal. “”We were going to stay there no matter what, and it’s just one of those things.
“He’s a competitor. He’s itching to keep going. And he’ll have plenty of time to do that. Today we just had a hard cap on him for sure.”
At the plate, Rylander worked a walk to open the game and start a three-run first-inning rally for Drury.
Connor Hinkell doubled to drive in Rylander, and Hinkell scored on an RBI single to center field by Lucas Hamilton (2-for-4). Hamilton moved up on Prenguber’s double and scored on a sacrifice by Feliciano to put the Blue Devils up, 3-0.
They added three more in the second, when Prenguber hit a two-run triple to right field, and three in the fourth, when Feliciano doubled and scored a run.
In the fifth, Hamilton tripled to score Rylander and scored on an overthrow to make it 11-0 and put a mercy-rule win on the table.
But Mount Greylock had other ideas.
After the Mounties’ second pitcher of the day, Eli Kristensen, stopped the bleeding, their offense rallied for three in the bottom of the fifth to extend the game.
Mason Canata, who started on the hill, worked a one-out walk that ended Rylander’s day. He ended up scoring on an infield single from Jameson Bayliss to make it 11-1.
Bayliss came all the way around from first when Jake Newberry launched a triple to left field, And Newberry scored on Kristensen’s RBI single to get the Mounties within eight runs.
“I thought our kids hung tough, and I thought they battled,” Mount Greylock coach Rick Paris said. “That’s going to play well for us throughout the year. You know, they could have easily just given up in that fourth inning and called it a game and said, ‘That’s it.’ But, no, we battled. We made it seven innings.”
Drury scored twice in the top of the sixth to go ahead, 13-3, but in the bottom of the frame, Mount Greylock rallied with two out to extend the game.
Everett Bayliss worked a walk and came around to score on a triple by Canata to get the margin back to nine runs and force a seventh inning.
Feliciano led off that seventh with his second double of the game to kickstart another three-run rally for Drury.
“This team came out swinging the bats,” Paris said of the Blue Devils. “They really are a good hitting team, one through nine, all the way through the lineup. They squared it up and hit some line drives on us.
“They put a lot of work in in the winter. So they’re already in mid-season form quicker than other people. So hats off to them.”
Mount Greylock (3-2) goes to Wahconah on Monday.
Drury (4-0) is at Lee on Monday.