Mansfield Baseball Falls to Walpole

The Mansfield High baseball team dropped a 9-5 decision to Walpole Thursday.

Mansfield started off the game strong, with two doubles in a row in the bottom of the first inning. David Eberhart hit the first double, and Tom Brady batted him in to make the score one to nothing.

Walpole fired back at the top of the second, with Senior Troy Salvatore hitting a fly ball to right field. He was batted in when Sophmore John Adams hit a ground ball that rolled on the third base foul line to bring in Salvatore.

Junior Craig Hanley then hit a fly ball that dropped in center field, bringing Adams home, bringing Walpole to a two to one lead.

Mansfield couldn’t get any runs the next inning, with a ground out, fly out and strike out. With two outs in the top of the third, Walpole started a rally, bringing in five runs in the inning. Salvatore loaded the bases, and Senior Jim Adams hit a ground ball past third base to bring in two runners. John Adams then hit a line drive past second base and brought in another run, and Hanely hit a triple to center field to bring in two more runners.

Mansfield then changed their pitcher to Adam Blake, and the last out was finally made when Tim Sullivan grounded out to third. Mansfield started off well enough in the bottom of the third with a leadoff home run from David Eberhart, but a double play two hitters later sealed the inning for them.

The Hornets started bringing in runs again in the bottom of the fourth, with Steve Nagle flying out and allowing Andrew Bukuras to run home. In a similar fashion, Tom Brady grounded out to first to allow Michael Farrell to run home.

Walpole’s Jim Adams followed up in the top of the fifth with a leadoff home run, bringing the score to 8-4. Mansfield was able to hold off any more runs. In the bottom of the sixth, Nick Carafa flied out to center and allowed Chris Johnson to score, but they could not follow it up in the seventh inning.

"I think we didn’t show up to play and by the time we decided we wanted to play it was too late,” Head Coach Tim Graham said. “We’re going to come in tomorrow morning and figure out what we have to do to put the ball in play and make some plays. It’s really a mental thing, they have to show up ready to play.”