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Saturday, May 18, 2013
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Mohawks shut down Wizards, 7-0

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The Watertown Wizards have emerged as the top road team in the league, but their struggles at home continue.

Taylor Martin and Matt Gage combined on a three-hitter as first-place Amsterdam downed Watertown, 7-0, on Sunday at the Alex T. Duffy Fairgrounds to extend its winning streak to five in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League.

The Wizards (5-5), who are a perfect 3-0 on the road, including an 8-3 victory at Glens Falls on Saturday night, have lost five of their seven home games, including four of their last five.

“We’ve got to protect home field,” Wizards third baseman Cole Gleason said. “We need to come out with more intensity and need to put some better games together. It’s definitely about being more consistent and getting that big hit.”

With a roster laden with Division I players, the Mohawks (6-2) scored four runs over the first three innings. Ed Charlton homered over the left-field wall to lead off the game. Josh Netheway (University at Albany) singled in a run. A pair of University of Kentucky Wildcats — Jeff Boehm (RBI double) and Thomas Bernal (RBI groundout) — struck to build a 4-0 lead.

Watertown had several prime opportunities to score in the early innings, loading the bases with no outs in both the first and third innings, but failed to push a run across each time. The Wizards then only managed only two base runners over the final six innings.

“Those are tough when you can’t push a run across,” Watertown manager Nathan Kafka said. “But those things happen, the guys will learn from it and be better next time.”

“It was late night last night, we got back pretty late,” Gleason said. “We just didn’t execute.”

Martin (Kentucky) scattered three hits over six innings and Gage (Siena College) retired all nine batters he faced and struck out six, including fanning the side in the ninth.

“He’s a good pitcher,” Gleason said of Martin. “He worked ahead, he mixed his pitches a lot, but I think it just came down to us not executing. We had a lot of guys on base today and just couldn’t get the big hit.”

Amsterdam turned three double plays, including a sharp twin killing in the sixth as second baseman Giuseppe Papaccio (Seton Hall) fielded the ball, flipped it back to shortstop Chase Green on the bag and threw on to Netheway at first base.

“Our pitching was good, we got in a couple of jams and Martin got out of them, which is really good to see,” Amsterdam manager Keith Griffin said. “He got a double-play ball and threw good pitches. He’s throwing well for us ... it was really a complete game for us and we’re playing well.”

Left fielder Evan Stevens (Wake Forest) went 3-for-4 and drove in a run for Amsterdam,

Watertown starter Ryan Dunn took the loss in going six innings and the newest Wizard, Kyle McNutt, tossed two innings in relief, allowing two runs on two hits.

The Wizards will attempt to break through at home this week with games against last-place Elmira on Tuesday and Mohawk Valley on Wednesday, both 7 p.m. starts.

“We’ve just got to weather the storm here,” Kafka said. “I have confidence in this team and we need to get on a roll, which I know we can do.”

nNOTES: The Wizards announced 612 attended the Father’s Day game, a season-high. ... Watertown, which had been averaging six runs a game, was shut out for the first time this season.

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