Baseball: No-hitter for Cohall

Pitching a no-hitter any time is special but Brandon Cohall’s timing couldn’t have been better for Walter Panas (7-3).

After losing 12-5 to its sister school, visiting Lakeland, on April 30, Cohall picked the Panthers right back up in their game against visiting Brewster on Monday as he no-hit the Bears 2-0.

He struck out five and gave up two walks, one each in the fourth and seventh innings.

Panas got its runs on an RBI double by Tom Dinnen in the fourth inning and an RBI single by Carmine Gentile in the sixth inning.

“The Lakeland game was a tough loss but we had a four-game winning streak before then,” Cohall said. “It was a tough way to play against them because we were excited for the game and wanted to beat them bad.

“It was important for us to get right back up and get this win against Brewster,” Cohall continued. “We didn’t want the loss to Lakeland to turn into a losing streak so I had to do all I could to help pick our guys up and get the team back on track.”

Cohall said one of the big keys to the no-hitter was the play of the team behind him.

“Overall, we played a good game,” Cohall said. “Defense was great the whole game. They were a main part of the no-hitter, too.”

For Cohall, it was the pinnacle of what has been a great early season start. He is now 4-0 and has a microscopic 0.73 ERA.

“I was able to throw all my pitches for strikes,” Cohall said. “My outing against Hen Hud (on April 18, which was a 2-0 complete-game victory) I was only throwing a fast ball and curve ball. I knew if I wanted to be able to keep having success this season, I was going to have to develop another pitch if I want to keep batters off balance, especially against Lakeland on Friday (7 p.m. May 6 at LHS). I know I am not going to be able to keep them off balance with two pitches. So I threw a slider today that I don’t usually throw; that was actually one of my base pitches. That was my strikeout pitch.”