Petty, Devils have themselves a day

Cosmos coach Archie Farmer: “Poultney is a quality opponent and we have to realize that there are some tough teams out there. You never know what is going to happen on game day.”
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20140422/SPORTS02/704229902

Published April 22, 2014 in the Rutland Herald Petty, Devils have themselves a day By POODY WALSH Correspondent SPRINGFIELD — Dan Williams has seen a lot of baseball games. The Poultney baseball coach waited for his family to grow up before getting into coaching and is now in his seventh season with the Blue Devils. Consequently one would think Williams would have seen just about everything that could happen on a baseball field. Well, he saw something new Monday in the Blue Devils 12-1 win in Springfield. He saw one of his players go 5-for-5. “Heck, I don’t think I ever saw one of my players ever get four hits in a game,” Williams said. Giving Williams his surprise was senior Nick Petty who had two doubles and three singles and even surprised himself. “I don’t ever remember getting five hits in a game, even in Little League,” he said. After fouling off two 3-2 pitches in his first at-bat Petty doubled. In his next four at-bats he nailed the first strike that he saw, doubling in the second and followed that with singles in the third, fifth and seventh innings. “I just kept telling myself that this was batting practice,” said Petty. “Those pitches looked awful good coming in there.” Poultney, after going 14-2 last spring and reaching the semifinals, is expected to have a good season, and certainly showed it Monday in the season opener. The Blue Devils got five-hit pitching, stroked out 10 hits and made just one error. The performance even brought a hard-to-take-away smile from Williams. “I’m ecstatic,” said Williams. “I never expected this.” Petty’s day of a lifetime aside, the Blue Devils did some other things that were noteworthy starting with hurler Brett Kelley who pitched five-hit ball for six innings. Kelley also had a funny offensive line score as he went to the plate five times and was not credited with an at-bat. He walked three times, was hit by a pitch and had a sacrifice fly. Joe Brown pitched a 1-2-3 seventh. And the win came against a team that opened with a 14-1 win over West Rutland. “I think we might have been a bit awed by that,” said Cosmos coach Archie Farmer. “Poultney is a quality opponent and we have to realize that there are some tough teams out there. You never know what is going to happen on game day.” Springfield used three pitchers with Cam Blais, Kyle Weeks and Brighton Fontaine all taking a turn. Springfield finished up with five hits, but Farmer was not upset with that part of the game. “We hit the ball hard, but we just happen to hit it right at people.” In addition to the five hits, Petty stole three bases and drove in two runs. He was also in centerfield when he started an 8-4-2 play to nail Blais who tried to score from second on a single. Poultney took control of the game early scoring twice in the first and third innings and three times in the second. Sean Shepardson had a two-run single in the seventh.