Division 4 baseball: Hopkins Academy collects one hit in 7-1 semifinal loss to St. Mary

By ELLIOT WELD

For the Gazette

Published: 06-08-2017 1:29 PM

AMHERST — The sixth-seeded Hopkins Academy baseball team fell to No. 2 St. Mary, 7-1, Wednesday in the Western Massachusetts Division 4 Tournament semifinal round at UMass’ Lorden Field.

Saints pitcher Nate Bonini had a no-hitter entering the sixth inning. The Golden Hawks spoiled his bid when Nate Kelley picked up the only hit of the game for Hopkins, a single. He came around to score off a sacrifice fly from Jon Morrison, but Hopkins trailed 7-1.

“This is probably the most fundamentally sound team we’ve played all year,” Hopkins coach Dan Vreeland said. “They make plays behind their pitcher, their pitchers throw strikes, you just have to execute perfectly or else you don’t bring any runs across. You saw that with us, the one inning that we executed everything perfectly like we wanted to and we got one run and that’s how you have to be against them.”

Hopkins’ first four at-bats of the game ended in strikeouts. Bonini, who fanned eight, allowed two walks. The Saints made three errors.

St. Mary led 7-0 after three innings.

“You give them an inch and they take a mile,” Vreeland said. “We had a walk or two here and a hit batter or two there. We had a play at home plate where the ball came out of my catcher’s hand, to no fault of his own, just unlucky stuff like that here and there.”

The Saints (20-2) advance to Saturday’s championship. They will face the winner between No. 1 Ware (19-2) and No. 4 Granby (18-4). That semifinal is Thursday at 4 p.m. at UMass.

St. Mary beat Hopkins 2-0 earlier in the season in a game where Morrison held the Saints to no hits. Morrison pitched a no-hitter against Smith Academy on Monday and was unavailable Wednesday on short rest.

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“I believe he threw 97 pitches on Monday. To turn a kid around on 97 pitches is just absurd especially when there’s so much more for him to play in his life,” Vreeland said. “It’s silly to risk his arm just for one game like this one.”

Hopkins’ No. 2 starter Trevor Fil took the mound against St. Mary. The senior allowed seven hits, four walks and two strikeouts.

“All of them could put contact on the ball and good things happen when you can put the ball in play and that’s exactly what they did,” Fil said.

Vreeland was pleased with Fil’s effort.

“He’s been my number two guy for this entire year and good for us last year, too,” Vreeland said. “He was the very logical next choice for me and I think he pitched his heart out. Exactly what you’d expect from him.”

As the lone senior, Fil said that he believes next season will be a successful one for the Golden Hawks if they continue working.

“They’ll work on their pitching, fielding, everything and they’ll come back ready,” he said.

St. Mary 7, Hopkins Academy 1

St. Mary           124 000 0 — 7 7 3

Hopkins            000 001 0 — 1 1 1

WP—Bonini LP—Fil

Records: St. Mary (20-2) Hopkins (10-11)

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