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McElroy no-hits red-hot Georgetown

Wednesday, April, 23 By John Shimer
Staff writer

In more than 30 years and 750 career games coaching from the dugout, Newburyport coach Bill Pettingell has seen his pitchers throw only three or four no-hitters in that time span.

Against one of the Cape Ann League's hottest hitting teams yesterday, Kyle McElroy added one more to that total, no-hitting Georgetown in a thrilling win, 10-0.

The Royals | who came into the game averaging nearly eight runs a game (39 runs in 5 games) and hitting .320 as a team | struggled both at the plate and in the field, making several key errors.

In the second inning with one out, Tom Morris and Kevin Holmes got back-to-back hits before Matt Mottola hit a sharp grounder to short. However, Anthony Conte bobbled the ball then made an errant throw that got by first baseman Andrew Sinkewicz, allowing Morris to score. The play was not finished, though, as right fielder Andrew Barba backing up the play threw to third to try and get Holmes, but the throw went into the Newburyport dugout for a two-base error, allowing all three runs to score. With the three-error play, Newburyport took the lead, 3-0.

The Clippers bats broke the game wide open against Royals starting pitcher Darwin Fabian in the third, loading the bases before getting a walk, an error, and another walk to score four more runs and increase the lead to 7-0.

Behind some good defense, McElroy would only get stronger as the game progressed, and Georgetown simply did not have an answer.

"I thought I hit my spots pretty well, our catcher did a great job, and our fielders made some awesome plays in the field," said the excited McElroy of his first high school no-hitter. "We wanted to get our hitting going today because we hadn't been hitting too great all season, and today we did pretty well."

After the game, Pettingell lauded the sophomore's tremendous outing.

"I thought he threw great for six innings | his ball movement was good, he threw hard, got his curveball over for strikes when he needed, but his fastball was his best pitch," said Pettingell. "Against one of the better hitting teams in the CAL, Kyle was able to threw a no-hitter, which speaks volumes as to how well he pitched today. Hats off to the kid because he's pitched great so far this season."

With several mental mistakes and physical errors, the loss left frustrated Royals coach Mark Rowe virtually speechless.

"I'm tongue-tied right now, and very disappointed in the way we came to play," stated Rowe bluntly. "This was a terrible day | just awful. We made too many mental and physical errors, but I congratulate Kyle (McElroy) on a well-pitched game."

The win was big for the Clippers, who after a rough 1-4 start where nothing seemed to be going their way are back to .500 after a third straight win.

"This win was very significant for us because we've had to overcome some adversity this season, losing some close games to the point where it seemed we were jinxed," Pettingell said. "Those kids could've got down, lost their confidence and focus, but they've battled back. Now we're 2-0 in the CAL, and that's what we play for, a division one league title, which we feel we always have an impact on."

At the heart of the Clippers success has been the solid pitching of a young group with little to no varsity experience.

"I believe our pitching has held us in there. We got some breaks today, but we've also gotten some timely hitting and we've only made one error in our last three games," Pettingell said. "I thought our pitchers might sneak up on some people because they are all rookies or guys with little varsity experience, but I knew if they got some innings under their belts they would be tough. To this point, both Tommy (Morris) and Kyle have been great, and Kevin (Holmes) has done well, too."