Flynn Pitches Taconic Past Mount Greylock
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The Taconic High baseball team wasted no time taking advantage of the breaks it got in Friday’s game against Mount Greylock.
For the Mounties, the good news is that a first-inning meltdown did not break their spirit.
Taconic scored four unearned runs in the first inning to take a 5-0 lead and cruised to a 7-2 win in the Berkshire Classic meeting between North and South Division winners.
Ryan Abel went 2-for-3 with a couple of RBIs, and Jake Flynn scattered seven hits en route to a complete game win on the mound.
For Mount Greylock (10-10), Brandon Condon settled down after the rough first inning to scatter four hits and allow two runs (one earned) over the next six innings.
“The first inning was rough,” Mount Greylock coach Steve Messina said. “We had walks, errors, hits, people weren’t in the positions they were supposed to be in. It was a mess of an inning. I never thought it was going to end, to be honest with you.
“But after that, Brandon settled down, the kids settled down, and it was an even game -- 2-2 after that. That’s what we took away from it. There were a lot of positives. We have to have some positives going into the tournament.”
Both Mount Greylock and Taconic (18-2) will learn their next opponents on Tuesday when the Western Massachusetts tournament brackets are released.
No one in the Berkshire County League will go into the tournament with more positives than Taconic, the winner of five straight and loser to no one in the county.
On Friday, coach Kevin Stannard’s team showed its ability to take advantage of what the defense gives it.
“We’ve been doing that all year,” Stannard said. “We don’t beat ourselves, and we try to make the other team beat itself. And it’s worked out that way quite a bit this year.”
Brett Murphy, Abel, Drew DeMartino and Izaiya Mestre each had an RBI single in the first-inning rally. Devon Walker drove in a run with a single to right in the sixth, and Abel tacked on a sacrifice fly in the seventh.
Meanwhile, Flynn never needed to use all of the five-run cushion he enjoyed the moment he took the mound.
Stannard said the junior right-hander has gotten better as the season has gone on.
“He’s been solid all year for us,” Stannard said. “He’s probably moved up to that No. 3 spot in the rotation. Not that [Ross Omelenchuck] has done anything wrong. They’re both very similar. It’s a nice problem to have, as a coach.
“Jake’s around the plate. He has his fastball, his curve and his change-up, and he throws them all for strikes, which is phenomenal for this level.”