There were four-game winning streaks connected to both of the Pinkerton Academy baseball squad’s home contests of last week. And when the week came to a close, the Astros had said goodbye to just such a skein of their own.
The PA crew ended the Manchester Memorial hardball squad’s four-game streak with a 7-1 drubbing in Derry Thursday, May 5, and in doing so bagged its fourth consecutive victory.
But then on Saturday, May 7, the Astros faced off against a Keene High contingent that came into play with a three-game winning streak, which it pushed to four with a 3-1 edging of its host.
In the mauling of Memorial, the Astros stepped into the bottom half of the first inning trailing 1-0. But they responded immediately by scoring five times in taking command of the contest.
The locals later added single runs in the bottom of the second and the latter half of the sixth to get to the 7-1 final.
The academy side bashed out 12 hits while pitcher John Polichetti held Memorial to half that number while collecting seven strikeouts.
Ben Curry smacked three hits and scored two runs, Brian Sutton slammed two hits and drove in two runs, and David Currier and Norm Kerman each thumped two hits and drove in a run.
It was Curry on the hill for the Astros in their Saturday home contest against Keene, and the Blackbirds kept their three-game winning run rolling with a 3-1 victory.
The hosts snared a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first but then watched Keene score once in the top of the third and twice more in the fourth en route to its win.
The Blackbirds managed eight hits off Curry, who walked two men but struck out five.
The PA offense only collected four hits in seeing its four-game winning run conclude.
The 6-4 locals then began this week’s play on Monday with a home game against a Concord High crew that held a 5-5 record.
And the academy crew returned to its winning ways with a 7-5 victory despite a late comeback attempt by the Crimson Tide side.
The hosts led 1-0 after one inning and then exploded for five runs in the bottom of the fifth to make it a 6-0 game. But Concord got three of those markers back in the top of the sixth to trim the PA lead back to 6-3.
The Astros got one of those runs back in the latter half of the sixth to place their lead up to 7-3, and the Tide fell short after scoring twice in the top of the seventh.
The Tide knocked 14 hits off four PA pitchers, and the Pinkerton offense smacked nine hits, with Kerman lacing two and driving in two runs and Mike Jellison tallying two hits and one RBI.
