By Michael Letendre

BRISTOL – The Bristol Eastern baseball team had to battle all the elements against East Catholic on Monday.

UCONN bound Frank Mozzicato was pitching on the mound for the undefeated Eagles and along with a couple bouts of unsettled weather, Eastern absorbed a tough 11-0 decision from Muzzy Field in Bristol.

The left-handed Mozzicato chucked a no-hitter against the Lancers as the game was called after five innings via the mercy rule.   

East Catholic – the top ranked team in the state – moved to 16-0 overall while Eastern fell to 3-13 over the CCC Interdivisional contest.

Mozzicato struck out eleven – including the last seven batters he faced.

He was near perfect, allowed just a two-out walk in the first inning to Eastern’s Andrew Lozier.  

Diving deeper into Mozzicato’s day, off his eleven strikeouts, six came via swinging third strikes while he threw just 62 pitches for the game – 45 for strikes (72.5-percent).

In the field, the Lancers defense was guilty of six errors which did not help matters. 

And then the weather caused havoc as the game was delayed until 4:50 p.m. due to the rain.

Dylan Woodsome started for the Lancers, pitching 2.1 innings before making way for freshman Ben D’Amato.  

Woodsome gave up an unearned run in the first inning but after a scoreless second frame, Eastern trailed just 1-0.  

In the third tilt, the Eagles added two more runs – with only one being earned – as Catholic captured a 3-0 lead.

D’Amato came to throw with one out gone in the third but in the fourth inning, East Catholic scored seven times on just three hits (all singles), sending 12 batters to the plate.

And the weather helped the Eagles a bit during the forgettable frame.

D’Amato got the first two outs of the inning, then an infield error opened the flood gates, making all the runs unearned.

With a full count on Alex Irizarry, thunder delayed the game nearly half-an-hour, and when the skies cleared, D’Amato was back on the hill.

Irizarry ended up drilling a base hit and things quickly fell apart for the Lancers.

Taking advantage of five consecutive walks from D’Amato, and reliever Logan Schenck, two wild pitches scored two runs, a wild pickoff attempt allowed the Eagles to notch a couple more tallies and two errors allowed Catholic to snare a 10-0 push through three-and-a-half innings of work.

East Catholic scored one final run in the fifth to make it 11-0 and the visitors closed out the bottom of the frame for the mercy ruled finish.

Eastern is back in action on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in a JV/varsity double-dip against Lewis Mills from Muzzy Field.

CCC Interdivisional Baseball

EAST CATHOLIC 11, BRISTOL EASTERN 0

from Muzzy Field, Bristol 

East Catholic (16-0) 102 71 – 11 8 0

Bristol Eastern (3-13) 000 00  – 0 0 6

Battery – East Catholic: Frank Mozzicato & Hank Penders; Bristol Eastern: Dylan Woodsome, Ben D’Amato (3), Logan Schenck (4), Mike Roalf (5) & Cameron Moore.

WP: Frank Mozzicato (EC); LP: Dylan Woodsome (BE)

East Catholic Batting

2B – Alex Irzarry

3B – None

HR – None

Bristol Eastern Batting

2B – None

3B – None

HR – None

Records: East Catholic 16-0 overall, Bristol Eastern 3-3