By Michael Letendre
The Bristol Blues of the New England Collegiate Baseball League are already in the thick of it – starting off the 2023 campaign with a 1-3 ledger.
The Blues, once again part of the Western Division along with the Valley Blue Sox, Danbury Westerners and North Adams SteepleCats, earned its lone victory on Thursday, June 8.
On that evening, the Blues foiled Valley by an 8-0 final from MacKenzie Stadium in front of 315 fans.
The Blues scored once in the second inning and nabbed another seven runs in the seventh to ice the thing.
Deandre Llopiz led the Blues at the plate, going 2-for-4 overall including a double, an RBI and a run scored.
He was the only player from Bristol to net a multi-hit game.
Daniel Hussey tallied two RBI, Griffin Arnone walked twice while Gavin Noriega added a triple and three RBI.
Blues’ pitchers allowed just a half-dozen hits over the shutout, fanning that same number of batters along the way.
Matthew Bergevin had two hits for Valley but there wasn’t much offense to go around.
Bristol used five pitchers that night including winner Jake Babuschak (5 IP, 4 hits, 3 Ks).
Mason Ulsh, Ben Pedersen, William Paoli and Tommy Hughes combined for a two-hitter, and shutout, out of the bullpen.
Close but no cigar
Bristol’s other three losses were by a combined four runs as the Blues have kept games extremely close.
To open the season last Wednesday, the Blues fell 3-1 to Newport and two days later on Friday, Bristol fell to Mystic 1-0.
And then this past Saturday, the Blues dropped a 5-4 decision to Danbury.
Over those three games, Bristol was outscored 9-5 – missing just a couple of hits each contest that would have turned the tide of each event.
Home this week
After playing North Adams on Sunday evening, Bristol is on the road for three straight games before coming back to the Mum City.
First, the Blues battle Keene in Bristol this Friday (6:30 p.m.) while competing against the same team on Sunday, June 18 (5 p.m.).
They’re Back
Two local favorites are back for the Blues this season as Bristol’s Jagger Duquette (Wagner College) and Plainville’s Alec Couture (University of Hartford) are looking to get back on the mound.
Duquette ended the season at Wagner at 0-1 with an ERA of 3.63 in 17.1 innings pitched.
The senior struck out 11 while walking just two – allowing a .286 batting averages to opponents.
Couture, also a senior, went 1-6 for the Hawks this year.
He struck out 41 batters and started all nine of his appearances over 47.1 innings pitched.
Couture allowed 36 earned runs while walking just 17 batters at Hartford.
