Cardinals Hold Off Wave, But Tide Rising

By Matt Brown

               This past Wednesday April 25^th Blue Wave Baseball battled the Greenwich Cardinals and fell to them three runs to none. The loss is the team’s second consecutive, but is a fairly positive sign in comparison to the squad’s Monday loss to the New Canaan Rams, in which the Rams walked up and over the Wave to finish with a 16 to 2 victory. The Wave is now 4-6 looking to stride towards and above .500.

               Wednesday’s loss for the Wave was the polar opposite of their Monday defeat. On Monday the story was fielding incompetence, while Wednesday was a testament to the skill level of Greenwich. In particular, the star of the show was Cardinal ace senior Ryan Marks. Marks was, as they say in the dish washing world, filthy. He threw a complete game shut out from the rubber with great command of his fastball and a changeup that looked like he was throwing a wiffleball. He epitomized efficiency, but to little fault of the Darien batters.

Blue Wave hitters like juniors Bobby Fitzpatrick and Cameron Smith were able to work 10 plus pitch at bats against Marks but he remained unshaken. When Darien got runs on base, Marks threw the pitches to get himself out of the jam. He finished throwing only 86 pitches through 7 innings.

For Darien, senior Liam Naughton answered Marks’ bell and threw a gem right back at Greenwich. After getting touched up for 3 runs in the first inning Naughton settled in to put up donuts for the next 6 innings. The significance of this start for both Naughton and Blue Wave cannot be overstated, the Greenwich Cardinals have one of the most experienced and powerful lineups in the FCIAC and to hold them to just three runs means to have given a tremendous effort.

Unfortunately for the Blue Wave, Naughton’s performance was slightly outmatched by Marks’. The Wave mustered up two hits from Nick Pettit and Daly Hebert. Hopefully, the boys can built of off this pitching duel and grab a win this Friday at Trinity Catholic.