By Joshua Koch
Holyoke Blue Sox Media Director

Holyoke, MA – The Blue Sox took one step closer to something that has eluded the franchise since they entered the New England Collegiate Baseball League in 2007 – a Western Division pennant.
With Holyoke’s 10-3 win on Saturday against the Mystic Schooners, winning the season series 4-2, the Blue Sox put more separation between them and the rest of the Western Division, which has been not an easy challenge to overcome this season.
The last time the Schooners visited Holyoke, Mystic left with a bad taste in its mouth as the Blue Sox unleashed their potent offense winning 19-9 back on July 16.
Daniel Munday, who got his first start and loss of the season for the Schooners, only lasted two innings as Holyoke sent 11 batters to the plate in the bottom of the first inning.
The game did not start well for Munday as he walked the leadoff man, Alex Glenn, to start the game and then the speedy Glenn swiped second base for his ninth steal of the season.
Eric Smith came up and brought Glenn home on a RBI double making it 1-0 Holyoke, and the Blue Sox were not done.
Back-to-back walks would load the bases for Tom Murphy, who came through with a RBI single driving in Smith to make it 2-0.
The free passes would haunt Munday once again as Justin Ringo drew a bases loaded walk allowing Ronnie Freeman to score extending the Blue Sox lead to 3-0.
Sam Eberle drove in two runs in his at-bat on a RBI single making it 5-0, and the Blue Sox would tack on another on a sacrifice fly to take a 6-0 lead into the second inning.
Kevin Crumb, who was also getting his first start for the Blue Sox, came out and pitched a gem as he retired the first nine batters he faced allowing only one walk striking out two swinging in that stretch as well.
Crumb would not give up a hit until the fourth inning when, as Holyoke has extended its lead to 8-0 at that point, and that runner would eventually score as a part of a two-run inning.
With the bases loaded of Schooners, Brett Doran stepped into the box and ripped a double into the gap driving in Patrick Miller and Christian Griffiths cutting into the deficit 8-2.
Holyoke would score its final two runs of the game on sacrifice flies off the bats of Eberle and Freeman. Eberle finished the game 3-for-4 with three RBIs on the night.
With a 10-2 lead Crumb would cruise for the next few innings finishing the night with six innings, allowing four hits, three runs, struck out four en route to his first win of the season.
The final run for the Schooners came in the sixth inning as Kevin Casey led off the inning with a double and would score on a groundout by Doran making it 10-3, which would be the final tally.
The Blue Sox are back in action on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. against the Vermont Mountaineers as Holyoke travels to Montpelier Recreation Field for the final time in the regular season.