Lenox Dale Legion Baseball off to slow start

LENOX DALE – Post 274 American Legion Baseball Manager Brian Wade expects a little more out of his troop this year.

With an experienced core returning from last year, including newcomers John Graziano and Clemente Jayne playing for the boys of summer in 2013, Wade hopes to at least make a dent in the win column in the next few months.

“We have a good group of kids, and we have a handful back from last year plus new kids, and some of our kids are a little bit older and more mature,” Wade said. “And we have more of a leadership role with Heamon [Williams] and Armani [Ingenini].”

Wade will be counting on that leadership to keep this year’s legion team a little more focused between the lines this summer, something that has plagued all the Southern Berkshire legion teams the past few seasons.

Lenox Dale dropped its first two games to Post 68 (Pittsfield) by scores of 9-1 and 9-2 on Monday. The Dales’ focus and respect for the game are apparent this season both in the dugout and between the lines, despite the losses.

“Our hitting has been pretty anemic – we have only come up with a handful of hits last game and a handful of hits on [Monday],” Wade said. “It has been pretty tough – we need to get our bats going so we can start scoring some runs.”

The Dales were plagued with a rough first inning on Monday against Post 68, which knocked three doubles in the first off Jayne for five runs in the opening frame.

Jayne, who struggled to keep the ball low and away from Post 68 in the first, was also plagued by an error, which didn’t help his cause.

The big righty however battled back the rest of the way, keeping Post 68 scoreless until the sixth, when Lenox junior Dillon Benham relieved Jayne. Benham just missed getting out of the sixth unscathed after striking out the first hitter and getting the next to ground out to second.

Benham unfortunately walked the next hitter, which opened the floodgates for a four-run inning – which was capped by Pittsfield’s John Berthiume smacking a three-run home run over the right-field fence, giving Post 68 a 9-0 lead.

“It was rough when we went out there – the ball kind of stood up on [Jayne], and it was tough dealing with that – after that, he showed great courage to come back out there to continue to throw strikes and keep the ball down and away from them and use the strike zone the umpire is giving us,” Wade said.

Jayne allowed only four hits and no runs from the second inning through the fifth, but was only bested by Post 68 starter Joey Dewey, who pitched five innings allowing only two hits and no runs for the victory.

“[Dewey] threw great – he threw strikes – it was hard for us to hit him and when he came out of the game we only had 2 hits at that point off him – solid pitcher who mixed up his pitches,” Wade said.

Look for Lenox Dale to find the win column this week as the team travels to Sheffield to take on Southern Berkshire. The Dales play their home games at War Memorial, for those interested in coming out to support this summer’s group.

Posted by Tim Davis on June 20, 2013. Filed under High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry