Pats win season finale

By Ryan Murray
Posted 5/31/18

By RYAN D. MURRAY The Pilgrim Patriots baseball team won its last game of the season, beating the Johnston Panthers 4-1 on Saturday evening at Johnston Memorial Park.

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Pats win season finale

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The Pilgrim Patriots baseball team won its last game of the season, beating the Johnston Panthers 4-1 on Saturday evening at Johnston Memorial Park. The Pats finish the season with a record of 9-9 in Division I.

Senior catcher Kyle Denis drove in all four of the Pats’ runs during the final contest.

“He’s been swinging the bat well and he’s the guy we want up in that position,” Pilgrim head coach Nolan Landy said. “We’ve been swinging the bat well and he did what he was supposed to do. He’s been putting the ball in play, so that’s good.”

Denis struggled to start the season, but he’s got a hot bat right now.

“I got off to a slow start at the beginning of the season and it’s starting to come around,” Denis said.  “Just getting all these RBIs, guys getting on base. Those hits wouldn’t matter if the guys didn’t get on base. So, it was a big team effort today. We had a four-game week. A tough week for us. We came out 3-1, so it was a good team grind to get the win today and finish off the week with a win.”

Both Pilgrim freshman Jared Reminder and Johnston junior Matt Loffredo pitched complete games. Reminder finished with five strikeouts, giving up just the one run and Loffredo struck out six and yielded four runs on eight hits and five walks.

“He threw very well today,” Landy said of Reminder. “He got ahead of the hitters, threw his off-speed pitches for strikes . . . He started the Portsmouth game and didn’t record an out. To see him bounce back like that is very encouraging. That’s good to see going into the playoffs.”

On the other side, Johnston head coach Joe Acciardo liked what he saw out of Loffredo and the opposing pitcher.

 “He threw well,” Acciardo said. “I think early on he was trying to find out where the strike zone was going to be. Both pitchers, I think weren’t getting that little strike zone, so everybody just had to kind of figure it out. Once we got going, I think both guys were throwing well.”

The problem for the Panthers lies in its offense.

 “I think the key of it was when we had guys on and they didn’t get them across the plate,” Acciardo said. “We didn’t get that big hit when we had runners in position or even runners on base, and they did. They got that big hit and scored two at a time when they did score.”

“We’ve had that struggle all season,” Acciardo continued. “When runners are in scoring position or on we don’t get that key hit. We get hits with nobody on and it doesn’t pan out.”

Pilgrim sophomore Cam Armenti led off the top of the first inning with a single to right field. Next, Andrew Merryfield walked. With one out and runners at second and third, Denis blasted a two-run single up the middle and gave the Pats an early 2-0 lead.

In the bottom of the third, Johnston got on the board. Robert Civetti, a junior led off with a single. Then with one out, senior Frank Heredia drove him in with a sacrifice fly to left field, pulling the Panthers within 2-1.

With two outs in the fifth, Pilgrim’s Matt Woods slammed a double up the middle, putting him at second base and Armenti at third. Then, Denis came up and knocked them both in with a single and extended the Pats’ advantage to 4-1.

Pilgrim plays its first playoff game on the road on Tuesday against TBA.

Johnston finishes the season with a record of 6-12 after falling to Coventry 3-0 on Sunday during in its season finale. The Patriots will take on Cumberland at 4 p.m. this afternoon.

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