Coming into Thursday’s home game against Moorestown, the Pirates were looking to even their record at 5-5 early in the season. The Quakers prevented Cinnaminson from doing that with a 7-3 victory on a cloudy, windy, frigid afternoon.
The Pirates had been playing better of late, especially offensively, scoring 20 runs over their previous three games (2-1). The bats had trouble waking up on Thursday until the sixth inning, when the Pirates plated three runs, but it was too little, too late as the Quakers held on to win.
“We really didn’t start hitting until the sixth inning. We dug ourselves a hole. I wish the bats would have come through a little sooner,” head coach Tracy Bart said after the loss. “We just seemed to get under some balls today so there were some fly balls out to the outfield.”
Moorestown built a 3-0 lead with single runs in the top of the second, top of the third and top of the fourth innings.
Senior pitcher Shannon Profy kept the Pirates close for most of the game, getting out of trouble in the first and limiting the Quakers to those single runs in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th innings.
“We are putting together solid innings and all we need now is to put together the complete game; offensively and defensively,” Bart said.
Moorestown extended their lead to 6-0 with three runs scored in the top of the sixth on a couple of infield hits and RBI groundouts.
When the Pirates came to bat in the bottom half of the inning, Moorestown struggled with the wind, dropping a flyout in right field that led to a couple of runs. It was their second error of the inning. The Pirates scored three times in the inning, cutting the lead to 6-3, but left the bases loaded.
Moorestown tacked on an insurance run in the top of the seventh to take a 7-3 lead. Despite a one-out double from Profy in the bottom half, the Pirates could not push any more runs across the plate and fell to 4-6 on the season, which is still young.
“It’s still early in the season. We have five games next week. We play Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So, there is still a lot of season left,” Bart said of the long season.
The Pirates return to the field on Monday, April 27 with an away game at BCIT-Medford. First pitch is slated for 3:45pm.
