Cougars Baseball Breaks Out of Funk, Crushes Massapequa

The old baseball adage is that you can't win if you don't get good starting pitching.

Well, it also helps when you score 14 runs.

The Cougars combined solid pitching and a heavy dose of offense against visiting Massapequa yesterday afternoon, as they came back from an early 4-0 deficit to win the game, 14-5.

Shortstop Noah Shulman and centerfielder Justin Harrison had two RBIs each, and starting pitcher Andrew Wood got the win after allowing just two earned runs over six innings while striking out seven.

The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Cougars.

"Today was great," Wood said. "It was great to come back after tough losses our last couple of games.  It was good to get back out there so that I could work on my stuff. I threw a lot of pitches but my team really helped me get the win today so I appreciate it."

Massapequa (5-7) struck first as they took advantage of some sloppy Cougars defense to score an unearned run in the first.  Mike Campbell hit a bloop single to right field that drove in Anthony Matiollo, who had reached on an error.

The Chiefs would add three more in the second, as two more Cougars' errors led to three additional runs. Massapequa led 4-0 heading to the bottom of the second.

That's when Kennedy (5-7) went to work. They scored their first run on an RBI walk by Patrick Murphy, and then after an errant pickoff throw by Massapequa catcher John Cerulli, two more runs came home.

Brandon Serota hit an RBI groundout to score Evan Krohn, and Michael Crispino followed with an RBI single.  Harrison drove in the last run of the inning with a single.

It was a six-run inning for the Cougars that featured many timely hits.  That was something that coach Eric Passman was pleased to see.

"Overall it was good," he said.  "We hit with runners on base which is something we haven't done in a long time. We got a great pitching performance from Andrew Wood. The key to high school baseball is that we made the plays in the field. In the first inning we had a little hiccup but after that we just made the routine plays."

The Cougars added three more in the third.  Shulman got the big hit with a ground-rule double that scored two, and Matt Bruno drove in another with a bases loaded walk.

"We finally finished a game out," Shulman said.  "We've been hoping for a W for a few games now. We were more focused today and more into the game."

The Cougars had one more big inning left in them.  After Campbell hit a solo homer in the top half of the fifth for Massapequa, Kennedy responded with five more runs in the bottom half.

John Rosse hit a ground rule double to score two, Serota hit an RBI groundout, and Patrick Murphy hit a ball to shortstop that was mishandled which led to two more runs.

The big inning made it 14-5, and that's how the score would remain until the end.

"Our pitchers had trouble finding the strike zone," Massapequa coach Tom Sheedy said.  "And when we did [Kennedy] got some key hits and put together a couple of big innings, and we couldn't respond."

Next up, the Cougars take the field on Monday at 4:30 p.m. when they host Carey.