HADLEY – Hampshire Regional capitalized on two big spots in the first inning to power past the Hopkins Academy baseball team 8-0 Monday.

With two batters on and two outs, Jack Boyle laced a double to center field that brought around both runners.

“You realize each inning matters, and each at bat matters,” Boyle said. “You’ve got to make the fielders make plays.”

Catcher Zach Phakos walked behind him, and junior Mikey Thompson lofted a three-run homer to center field to make it 5-0.

“I wanted to get back into it. I hadn’t been hitting well,” Thompson said. “I thought (it looked good), but I didn’t think it would be out.”

Those five runs were more than enough support for Boyle. He threw six shutout innings and allowed just two hits with three walks and three strikeouts.

“I wanted to come out throwing strikes. I wanted to trust my fielders and have them make plays,” Boyle said.

Hopkins Academy pitcher Cody West settled in quickly. He allowed just one base runner over the next four innings and sat down 11 batters in a row, including five consecutive strikeouts at one point. West struck out eight in six innings.

“I think early on, we were a little predictable. I think they saw the fastball come in and jumped on it. We started mixing up when we were throwing a curveball, throwing it in different parts of the order and stuff like that,” Hopkins Academy coach Dan Vreeland said. “When he was 100-percent himself and he was mixing his pitches, they couldn't touch him. Lots of positives to take away from that.”

The Golden Hawks (2-1, 1-1 Suburban West) put Hampshire (3-0, 2-0) in its fair share of tough spots but couldn’t convert any of them to runs. They loaded the bases in the second with one out but struck out twice. Hopkins Academy also had multiple base runners in the fifth and seventh innings. The Golden Hawks left six batters in scoring position.

Patrick Fitzgibbons doubled and West singled for Hopkins Academy. Chace Earle reached base twice for the Golden Hawks after drawing a walk and being hit by a pitch.

“They're obviously a really well-coached team. (Mark) Baldwin knows what he's doing over there and you could see that they're a team who makes you pay for little tiny mistakes and also takes advantage of every situation they have,” Vreeland said.

The Raiders added a Thompson RBI single in the sixth and scored two runs with heads up base running in the seventh.

“Against a good team, you can never have too many runs,” Baldwin said. “We made some mistakes, we didn’t have a flawless game, but it gives the pitcher confidence like, ‘OK, we’ll just get the next guy.’”

Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.]]>