Opening Day: D-Y Dolphins Storm Back Against Red Raiders for Win

SOUTH YARMOUTH – Pitching to Dennis-Yarmouth senior catcher Mike Dunn isn’t a late-inning quandary too many baseball coaches want to mull over.

But with bases loaded and no outs, that’s what Barnstable High first-year head baseball coach Ryan Kinski was forced to do, so he opted to bring in sophomore southpaw Jackson Badot in relief of starter Eric Holzman and Dunn capitalized on the new look.

Dennis-Yarmouth catcher Mike Dunn watches the flight of a foul ball off the bat of Barnstable shortstop J.R. DiSarcina in Monday’s season-opening win for the Dolphins.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports

Dunn made Badot’s first-ever varsity appearance an unquiet one when he took a 1-1 belt-high fastball and hammered it for a three-run double to leftfield to turn a 4-1 deficit into a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the fifth inning and the host Dolphins never looked back.

Mike Knell followed Dunn’s base-clearer with  a walk, but got nabbed at second on a fielder’s choice grounder from Trevor Allen and then Dunn came home with the Dolphin’s go-ahead run on an infield error. Badot settled down to get the last two outs with two men on, including his first career strikeout to end the inning. The Dolphins headed into the top of the sixth inning, however, with a 5-4 advantage.

Barnstable sophomore backstop C.J. McCabe led off the sixth with a first-pitch laser down the leftfield line but the ensuing batter seemed to get his signals crossed up and he swung away in a sacrifice situation, grounding into a 5-4-3 double play that fizzled the Red Raiders’ rally as quickly as it began.

Badot got two quick outs in the bottom of the sixth, fanning Drew Cochran and getting Max Sumner on a comebacker, but then the wheels came off for the Red & White as the Dolphins plated three more on a pair of infield errors, an infield single, a walk and then a two-run single from Ben Chapasko for an 8-4 Dolphin lead. Barnstable sophomore righty Ben Floren relieved Badot in the midst of the three-run Dolphin rally.

“We stayed positive,” Dennis-Yarmouth first-year head coach J.D. Stone said after his first career victory at the varsity level. “We kept

Dennis-Yarmouth senior righty reliever Gandin McCaffrey picked up the win in the Dolphins’ opening day, 8-5, comeback battle with Barnstable.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports

ourselves in the game.”

The Red Raiders got a run back in the top of the seventh when Alex Mercado got pegged with a Gandin McCaffrey pitch with one out, followed by a J.R. DiSarcina basehit and a Jack Kennedy two-out, RBI-single, but it proved not enough as McCaffrey got the final Barnstable batter to line out to second base.

McCaffrey, a senior righty, came on in relief of starter Allen, and threw 2 1/3 innings. He allowed one earned run. Allen allowed four runs in 4 2/3 innings of work. McCaffrey got the win. Badot took the hard-luck loss.

Barnstable jumped out to an early, 3-0, first-inning lead on a two-RBI basehit to rightfield and an infield grounder from Joel Carlson. Holzman tossed three shutout innings before allowing a run in the bottom of the fourth. That made the score 3-1, Barnstable still ahead.

Barnstable’s Mercado led off the fifth with a walk and advanced twice on wild pitches from starter Allen before coming home on a Kennedy ground-out that made it 4-1.

Cochran led off the fifth with a first-pitch single up the middle and advanced to third base on an ensuing basehit from Sumner. Sumner advanced to second base on the outfield throw to third base in an attempt to nab Cochran. Alex Baler walked to load the bases before Badot came in to face Dunn who changed the course of the rest of the game with his bases-clearing double.

Barnstable High junior righty Eric Holzman tossed four innings of one-run, two-hit baseball but the Red Raiders took the hard-luck loss.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports

Barnstable (0-1) next faces Dartmouth at home on Thursday (April 9) in its first Old Colony League match-up of the season. Dennis-Yarmouth returns to Merrill “Red” Wilson Field Wednesday at 4:30 pm to face Nauset in the first Atlantic Coast League match-up for both teams.

Dunn and Chapasko both had a pair of hits for the hosts.

— Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm