Monument Kills Drury's Playoff Chances
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. -- Facing a must-win situation, the last thing the Drury baseball team needed was to dig itself out of an early hole in its game against Monument Mountain on Wednesday.The Blue Devils and starter Max Quinn did just that, however, allowing the Spartans to score four runs in the first inning on their way to a 6-5 win at home. The loss officially drops Drury (7-10) out of playoff contention with one game still to go.
"Our tournament hopes were crushed today," Blue Devils head coach Al Marceau said. "We went into the game short-handed, and we played with a ton of pride and heart. Max had a tough first inning and a couple miscues really hurt. He was lights out after the first, though. I think the terrible strike zone really had Max upset in the first, and it's a lot of pressure when you know you have to win.
"He did everything he could, but we fell 90 feet short."
Quinn (3-3) was stellar the rest of the game, allowing just two more runs in the bottom of fifth inning. Those two runs would prove to be the difference, however, after Drury had rallied back to tie the game with two runs in the third inning and solo runs in both the second and fourth frames. Marceau's club scored one more time in the top of the sixth but couldn't push the tying run home despite having runners on second and third base in the seventh.
"Offensively, we battled all day," Marceau said. We had a hit from everyone in the lineup, including two hits apiece from [Slayter] Aubin, [Alex] Bush and [Kareen] Becket. We had the tying run on third base and go-ahead run on second in the seventh, but Beckett lined out to right. Off the bat, I thought the freshmen had done it again, but the wind held it up and the kid ran it down.
"That's the game of baseball. It can be extremely cruel at times. I'm proud of the way we fought and battled. It just wasn't our day or season."
Becket led the way for the Blue Devils' offense, going 2 for 4 with an RBI, a run scored and one stolen base. Aubin and Bush also had two hits, while Quinn finished 1 for 3 with a pair of runs batted in. Drury outhit Monument 11-6 in the game but made two costly errors on defense.
Although his team was eliminated from the postseason picture, Marceau was quick to point out just how strong of a team he thought the Spartans were. The Devils actually fared well against the North Division champions this year, losing 3-1 to Monument in the third game of the season before coming back to earn a 5-2 win over the Spartans at home last week.
"Monument can go all the way with that pitching and defense," he said. "They're the most solid team in the county."