Alvirne baseball came into last week with just one win and poised to be swiftly eliminated if they didn’t manage to turn their season around. With Salem and Dover on the schedule last week, it was going to be a tough task, but the Broncos managed to be up to the task, as they took down the Blue Devils on Monday 2-1 in a walk-off, and then they beat Dover 4-1 on Friday afternoon in a pitcher’s duel.
On Monday, the Broncos welcomed Salem (1-8) to town, and thanks to solid pitching from Logan Casey and Aaron Masson, the teams entered the fourth inning the same way they started the first-deadlocked at 0-0.
In the top of the fourth, the Blue Devils managed to break through and get to Casey after Owen Doherty doubled with one out and scored on a two-out RBI double to left field to give Salem a 1-0 lead heading to the bottom of the fourth inning.
Alvirne responded quickly in the fourth as Casey led off the inning with a single, then reached second on an error by the first baseman Dom Hamman and scored on an error by Masson. The Broncos even loaded the bases with nobody out after Casey scored, but were unable to put up a crooked number on the Blue Devils after offensive interference was called on Max Francisco.
Nobody would score until the bottom of the seventh as both Casey and Masson were dealing on the mound. The Broncos managed to walk the game off as Max Francisco blooped a single between the shortstop and third baseman to score Jameson Kruger from second base.
The Broncos, in picking up their first walk-off victory of the season, secured their second win and looked poised to potentially keep their playoff hopes alive. In order to pull that off, however, they would have to beat a Penn State commit on the mound in Alex Cook for the Dover Green Wave.
Like Monday’s game against the Blue Devils, Friday’s matchup was nothing if not a pitcher’s duel, as the two teams were held scoreless for the first two and a half innings before the Broncos managed to open the floodgates.
Alvirne picked up all four of their runs in the bottom of the third inning as two runs scored on an error charged to Andres Alcapia, another on a Chase Mitchell RBI single, and the fourth run came in on a Jayden Lewis RBI single to right.
Neither team would score again until the top of the sixth when the Green Wave got their first and only run of the ballgame thanks to some small ball after a leadoff double.
Mikey Bebris would ultimately win the pitcher’s duel on Friday, not only outlasting Cook by five innings but allowing three fewer runs in the 4-1 complete-game victory for Bebris, who picked up his first win of the season, despite his excellent numbers on the mound.
For the first time this season, the Broncos made it a week without a loss, and look to continue that pattern this week with matchups against Bedford on Monday, Nashua South on Wednesday, and Manchester Central-West on Friday. The Broncos need all the wins they can get if they hope to battle for one of the final playoff spots.
