Springfield shakes off rust to defeat Twin Valley

Since winning its first game of the season on April 15, Springfield had been dormant until Thursday afternoon. Twin Valley took advantage of some miscues early on while the Cosmos were shaking off the rust, but in the end Springfield took care of business with a 15-9 win.

www.rutlandherald.com     www.eagletimes.com

2016-04-29 / Sports Springfield shakes off rust to defeat Twin Valley 15-9 By CHRIS DOHERTY cdoherty@eagletimes.com Springfield's Girard Lecouffe delivers a pitch to the plate during Thursday's win over Twin Valley. — CHRIS DOHERTY Springfield's Girard Lecouffe delivers a pitch to the plate during Thursday's win over Twin Valley. — CHRIS DOHERTYSPRINGFIELD — Since winning its first game of the season on April 15, Springfield had been dormant until Thursday afternoon. Twin Valley took advantage of some miscues early on while the Cosmos were shaking off the rust, but in the end Springfield took care of business with a 15-9 win. “We looked like a team that hadn’t played in two weeks,” Springfield head coach Rich Saypack said. “But, like I told them there’s a lot of positives.” The teams combined for five runs in the first inning with Twin Valley leading 3-2, but in the third inning the bats came alive for the Cosmos. Jon Hildreth walked to lead things off, advanced to second on a balk and scored to tie the game on a single by Nick Bedi. Bedi stole both second and third base before giving Springfield the lead on an error by the third baseman off the bat of Ben Tubbs. From then on, six consecutive Cosmos reached base. John Stafford roped his second double of the game to drive in Tubbs. Stafford also drove in a run with a double in the first inning. The big boom happened when Girard Lecouffe stepped up with two runners on. He wasted little time before blasting one out of left field for a three-run home run to give Springfield a 9-3 lead. “That’s the case of seeing a pitcher a second time around,” said Saypack. “We talked about getting our timing right and we go out and we hit him.” Lecouffe took the mound for Springfield and after having to get extra outs in the first two innings he went 1-2-3 in the third inning. In the fourth, two walks and two singles led to two runs for Twin Valley to cut the lead to 9-5. “We got four innings out of our sophomore pitcher, four solid innings,” said Saypack. “In the past he’s collapsed (after long innings) and today he hung in there and shut them down.” Lecouffe earned the win for his effort. He went four innings, allowed just two earned runs, six hits, four walks and six strikeouts. Zack Tubbs walked to start things in the bottom of the fourth and scored quicklySpringfield's Jon Hildreth makes the throw to first from his position at second base during Thursday's game. — CHRIS DOHERTY Springfield's Jon Hildreth makes the throw to first from his position at second base during Thursday's game. — CHRIS DOHERTY on a triple by his brother, Ben, to give the Cosmos a 10-5 lead after four. Cody Bushey came in to pitch in the fifth inning and, after a leadoff walk, retired the next three in order, two by way of the K. Bushey struggled in the sixth inning, but Hildreth came in and struck out three of the four batters he faced to keep the slim lead at 10-9. With just one hit in the bottom of the sixth, Springfield manufactured five insurance runs, making it easier for Hildreth to close the game out in the seventh. “It definitely makes it easier when you have a big lead like that,” Hildreth said. Saypack said Hildreth would’ve thrown Thursday whether the team played or not because the Cosmos have games on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday coming up and Saypack wants him and Kyle Weeks ready to go for that stretch. “It was perfect for him (Hildreth). He got to come in an work with some men on,” said Saypack. Hildreth earned the save, pitching two innings, striking out five and only allowing one hit. The Cosmos stole 16 bases, which helped nine runs score. All nine spots in the Springfield order registered at least one run. Matt Veysey reached base all four times he batted and scored twice. Springfield improves to 2-1 on the year and has a difficult stretch coming up with games Saturday (at Green Mountain), Monday (Windsor), Tuesday (at Bellows Falls) and Thursday (Fair Haven). Hildreth said it was good to get back into game action Thursday in preparation for the upcoming stretch. “It’s kind of like a refresher, just get us back into game mode,” he said. http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20160429/SPORTS02/160429413 Published April 29, 2016 in the Rutland Herald Lecouffe, Cosmos top Wildcats By Poody Walsh SPRINGFIELD — Girard Lecouffe was the winning pitcher and slammed a home run as Springfield scored five runs in the sixth inning to finally put Twin Valley away, 15-9, in a Marble Valley League game Thursday at Bisky-Wyman Field. The home run came over a the fence that has been recently installed. For years Riverside Park had no fence and long drives were often hauled down. However, no one could catch up with Lecouffe’s drive over the fence in left. Springfield baseball coach Rich Saypack said the distance to the foul pole in left was 300 feet. LeCouffe, just a sophomore, pitched three-hit ball going the first four innings. There are probably no records kept on stolen bases, but what may have been a first is that both teams combined for 30 safe steals in 30 attempts, 16 for Springfield. It was the first game for Springfield since April 15 and brought the Cosmos to 2-1 on the season. Twin Valley fell to 1-4. Both teams are looking at lot of baseball coming up. The Wildcats host Woodstock on Friday and have four games next week. Springfield goes to Green Mountain Saturday morning then hosts Windsor on Monday and is at Bellows Falls on Tuesday. The Cosmos took a 10-5 lead into the sixth inning, but the Wildcats scored four times before Jon Hildreth came on in relief to strike out the side. Hildreth also had two strikeouts in the seventh inning. Springfield used another sophomore, Cody Bushey, after Lecouffe and Bushey was charged with the four runs the Wildcats scored in the sixth inning. Even though Twin Valley closed to within a run, Saypack felt confident that Hildreth could hold back the Wildcats. A couple of runs came in on wild pitches, but Hildreth pitched two innings of no-hit ball. “I had a feeling we’d be OK because we had Hildreth and Tyler weeks ready to go,” said Saypack. Springfield then took any further late pressure off by scoring five times on just one hit in the sixth. “We keep finding ways to make mistakes,” said Twin Valley coach Brian Marone. “We dug ourselves a deep hole that was to big to crawl all the way out of. We’re young and we’ve got a lot of things to work on.” Ethan Fox started on the hill for the Wildcats and was followed by Joey Rafus and Kyle Murdock. While the five-run sixth put a lock on the game, a seven-run third got the Cosmos rolling. Lecouffe’s home run came with two mates aboard. John Stafford also had a nice offensive game with two doubles. Matt Veysey had two singles. Justin Hicks had a double and single for Twin Valley.