By Joshua Koch
Blue Sox Media Director

Sunday’s game between Holyoke and North Adams marked the third meeting between the two squads in less than a week.

The Blue Sox for the third time notched a victory against the NECBL worst Steeple Cats (1-8) winning in a shootout, 7-4, at Joe Wolfe Field in North Adams.

Blue Sox coach Darryl Morhardt said defeating a team like North Adams in a week is interesting considering their past success in the league.

“North Adams’ been good every year, they’ve been to the playoffs,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re really that bad or if playing us three times is not the best way to start the season for them.”

Holyoke (5-1) wasted no time getting on the scoreboard as Blue Sox designated hitter Tom Murphy stroked a double down the left field line allowing Ronnie Freeman and Eric Smith to round third base and come in to score.

The Blue Sox would add another run in the third inning as Freeman, who is batting  continued his hot hitting doubling to deep right-center field scoring Smith to take a 3-0 lead.

North Adams would answer in the fourth inning as Justin Leeson scored the first run of the game on a Jacob Daniel sacrifice fly.

Despite cutting into the Blue Sox lead, the Steeple Cats pitching staff could not hold off the explosive offense of Holyoke.

In the fifth inning, Paul McConkey singled in Sam Eberele from third base, who was hit by a pitch to get on base, to give the Blue Sox a 4-1 lead. Then to add to it Smith singled into right field driving in McConkey for the fifth run of the game for the Blue Sox.

The Blue Sox continued to pour it on in the sixth inning as Eberle stroked an RBI double down the left field line to score Freeman and Tenaglia to blow the game wide open for Holyoke as its lead was extended to 7-1.

Eberle finished the game 2-for-4 driving in two runs, and after the game he said it was nice to get going after strugging a little bit at the beginning and is excited to see the rest of the team doing the same thing.

“It feels great,” he said about being productive finally. “We have a great team here, a lot of talent, and I think once everybody gets going it’s going to be hard to stop us offensively and we have great pitching too.”

The Steeple Cats would not go down without a fight though.

After pitching a quality game, Daniel Watts was replaced by Evan Scott in the sixth inning despite giving up only one run in his outing. At the end of the night Watts was the winning pitcher.

Scott ran into some trouble in his first and only inning of work as he loaded the bases with Steeple Cats before Brett Frantini hit a high chopper down the third base line allowing Sam Russell and Kyle Boudreau scored making it 7-3.

One more run would score on a groundout by Nico Hernandez to bring the Steeple Cats within three and that’s where the score would stay for the rest of the night.

Watts, who recorded his first win of the season on Sunday night, said with this being a new league for him he was glad to have a solid start and put his name in contention for the starting five.

“Felt good, you never know what to expect from a summer league like this you always see good talent,” he said. “You always want to go out and have a good start, try to get in the rotation however you can.”

The Blue Sox extended their lead in the Western Division with the victory as they continue to ride the best start in franchise history.

Holyoke will be back in action tomorrow against the Vermont Mountaineers with a 6:30 p.m. start.