Dubie, Drury Open with a Win
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- It was a long and frustrating spring for the Drury High School baseball team last year and a long and frustrating wait for the 2018 season to get underway.
But Saturday’s opener flew by thanks to the pinpoint pitching of ace Ryan Dubie.
Dubie allowed just two hits over six innings to lead the Blue Devils to a 9-0 win over Wahconah at the Alcombright Sports Complex in the season-opener for both teams.
Connor Clark went 2-for-3 with a triple, and Reece Racette was 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs.
But Dubie did not need all that much offensive support as he allowed just an infield single over the first five innings before Bob Archambault’s one-out double in the sixth.
“He did a good job keeping his pitches within the zone, catching us off guard,” Wahconah coach Rob Cowdrey said. “I give him a lot of credit. He put us in a position that we haven't seen in practice, and I think we struggled to adjust.”
Drury coach Pat Boulger was not surprised to see Dubie come out strong out of the gate.
“Offensively, I thought we were much better than I thought we were going to be,” Boulger said. “I did not think we were going to hit as well as we did. Pitching wise, I got what I thought we'd get out of Dubie. Even last year, if you look at the games we had, when Dubie threw, we were in that game. We may not have had the offensive bacup or the defensive backup that we wanted.
“Now, we have a little bit of a different formula for him, which is nice.”
Drury was 2-16 a year ago, closing with a brutal stretch in which the Blue Devils were outscored, 75-0, in their last four games, a span that included an 8-0 loss to Wahconah.
“That's a good, quality Northern team there,” Boulger said. “That's a quality win for our program. We took some lumps last year, as we all know. That's a really nice game for those guys to feel good about where we're going and what direction we're heading in for this program.
“I'm proud of all the guys, one through 16, who have invested in this so far. It's tough being in the gym, but they have done the things necessary to make themselves as good as they can in the gym so when we get outside, we were able to execute things in a proper way.”
The Blue Devils scored in each of the first four innings to build a 7-0 lead.
Clark’s first-inning triple drove home Racette for the game’s first run, and Clark came home on single from Dubie.
In the second inning, Justyn Cowell led off with a walk, moved up on singles by Racette and Clark and scored on a wild pitch. Racette then came home on a Dubie sacrifice fly to make it 4-0.
Racette’s two-run double in the third pushed the lead to 6-0, and Jacob Brayman scored on Dylan Toomey’s RBI groundout in the fourth.
An error and another sacrifice fly, this one from Logan Rumbolt, scored the last two runs in the bottom of the sixth.
Wahconah finished with just the one error but also fed some of Drury’s early rallies with missed coverages on the bases.
“Unfortunately, we have a smaller gym, and you can only do so much,” Cowdrey said. “Then when you get out on the big boy field, throws are a little longer, the bases are a little further apart, and guys don't have the mindset yet of the timing that it takes. We struggled today.
“I'm not ready to pull the plug on the season, so to speak. If anything, I'd rather have this reality check on Day One rather than Day 20 or come tournament time. I told them yesterday that all of our warts are going to be exposed tomorrow, and we have quite a few warts that we have to work on. But we'll get 'em figured out.”
Wahconah hosts Taconic Hills on Friday.
Drury goes to Mount Everett on Monday.