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Central Catholic Raiders Baseball '11

Mon, May 02, 2011 03:30 PM @ Central Catholic
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 Final
Methuen 0 0 0 0 1 1 2
Central Catholic 3 2 0 2 0 1 8

Shields stands strong for Central

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Monday, May, 02 By Hector Longo

NORTH ANDOVER – Put the baseball in Dan Shields’ hands every Monday afternoon, and the Central Catholic senior is a pretty happy camper.

Of course, who wouldn’t want to pitch in front of this lineup?

Yesterday, the Raiders swung the bats early, putting up five early runs and a motivated Shields did the rest, slaying Methuen on just five hits in an 8-2 Central win.

“That’s why I want to be here,” said Shields, the 5-11 right-hander, who didn’t give up an earned run in his third quality start of the early going. “I think we knew that our staff was young last year, and this year a lot of us are seniors. Someone has to lead us. I’m just glad to go out there and compete.”

Shields, who has his sights set on club baseball at the University of Tampa next year, earned his first win. More importantly, he helped the Raiders take step one toward erasing last week’s disappointing 1-2 effort.

“We needed it. We didn't play too well last week,” he said. “This was a big one. It's about pitching and defense.  We'll tighten it up, and we’ll be fine.”

Central put Shields in his comfort zone, touching Ranger starter Cal Carroll for three in the first and two more in the second.

Pesky Joel Sullivan (1 hit, 3 walks, 4 runs) was right in the middle of each rally, walking and scoring in the first then singling in a run and coming around again in the second.

“That lead was so important,” said Shields. “If it's tight late, and it comes down to me vs. Cal, that could be really tough. He’s a heck of a pitcher.”

Instead, Central just played loose on the lead with Shields never really encountering trouble. Both of the Ranger runs were unearned as Shields dropped his ERA to 0.74 on the year.

Colin Walsh paced Central’s 10-hit attack with a triple and two singles Paul Trabucco chipped in two hits and drove in a pair of runs for the 4-3 Raiders, who’ve got plenty of work ahead this week with Andover slated tomorrow and Lawrence Thursday.

“We don’t really know for sure what we have here as a team,” said Shields. “When we get it rolling, we might show some people what we can be.”

Game Statistics:

Methuen (2):  Cody Cyr cf 4-0-1, Corey Shepherd 2b 4-0-1, Eric Lacroix lf 2-0-0, Cal Carroll p/1b 4-0-0, Bobby Cole ss 3-1-0, Cam Cyr 1b 1-0-0, Cam Conway p 2-0-1, Paul Tomacchio dh 3-0-1, Evan Cyr 3b 3-0-1, Kevin Higgins rf 3-1-0, Nick Buote c 0-0-0, Totals 29-2-5

Central (8):  Zach Bardwell cf 4-0-0, Joel Sullivan lf 1-4-1, Colin Walsh 2b 4-2-3, Paul Trabucco lf 4-1-2, Connor Perry c 4-0-0, Alex Valenti dh 3-0-1, Tucker Schell 3b 4-0-1, Dan Shields p 3-0-1, Brian Allen ss 3-1-1, Nick Gorski 1b 0-0-0, Totals 26-8-10

RBI:  CC — Sullivan, Walsh, Perry, Trabucco 2

WP: Shields; LP:  Carroll

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