Putnam pg 9 5-12-11
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- Category: Past Issues
PUTNAM — The Putnam Middle School baseball team entered last week 3-0, thinking they had a pretty good team. With Parrish Hill and Lisbon both on the schedule, they would get the chance to find out just how good they really were.
The Parrish Hill Pirates made the trip to Putnam May 3. Shawn Audet took the mound for Putnam and went straight to work, retiring the batters in order to start the game. Jacob Guertin walked to lead the Putnam half of the first inning, followed by singles from Joshua Allard and Kyle Ciquera.
Steven Dakai singled into right center scoring two runs. Then a hit by Dan Lowell and walks to Jon-Luc Cournoyer, Audet and Brevon Harmon scored a couple more.
The Parrish Hill pitcher had trouble locating the plate and yielded eight runs in the first. Audet continued to strike out batters including striking out the side in the third inning. Putnam scored again in the third to make it 9-0. Nate Lowell drove in Chris Dunden in the fifth inning to bring the score to 10-0 and end the game. Audet struck out nine batters and pitched a no-hitter. After the game, coach Derek Coderre called the boys out to right field and reminded them that this was the start of something bigger; that their goals still haven’t been reached.
The May 6 game vs. Lisbon will be for first place, they had better be ready.
That game would be for first place in the division and promised to be an exciting game. Lisbon jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second inning hitting the ball hard off of Putnam starter Joshua Allard. Allard continued to battle and hoped the Putnam bats would arrive and get him some runs.
Allard singled, stole two bases and scored in the third inning to cut the lead in half. Dan Lowell and Nicholas Foucault scored in the fourth to give Putnam a brief lead. Lisbon responded with six runs in the fifth to take a commanding 8-3 lead.
Kyle Ciquera, the team leader, called the boys into a huddle before the start of the sixth inning. Whatever words he said seemed to resonate with the team as they came out swinging the bats in the bottom half of the inning. Cournoyer singled to start the inning, and was replaced by the speedy Nate Lowell. Foucault singled and Ryan Renshaw walked to load the bases. Brevon Harmon singled scoring Nate and Nicholas. Guertin walked followed by a fielder’s choice to Ciquera that kept the bases loaded. With two outs and the bases loaded Dakai hit a short fly ball that was missed by the Lisbon second baseman and drove in two runs to give Putnam a 9-8 lead. Jacob Guertin came in to relieve Allard on the mound giving up a very loud double, striking out two batters and earning his second save of the year.
Brevon Harmon Harmon ran down a deep fly ball to make the catch for the final out of the game.
The two wins make Putnam Middle School’s record 5-0, their best start in anyone’s memory, and sole possession of first place. The boys cheered coach Coderre’s name after the post-game huddle. The Wolf Pack will host Canterbury May 11 and Pomfret May 12.