Ben Jahnz leads Cumberland baseball over La Salle in rematch of state championship game
PROVIDENCE — Benjamin Jahnz was getting stronger with each out and his fifth- and sixth-inning dominance was proof.
Jahnz allowed just one batter to reach base over his final two innings in a Division I baseball game at La Salle on Thursday that was a rematch of the state championship game. After the Clippers suffered their first loss of the season, the ace dialed up a much-needed performance.
The junior surrendered just five hits and two runs with 10 strikeouts on 103 pitches in the 6-2 win against the Rams. The triumph helps Cumberland (6-1) keep pace with Hendricken (8-0), the division's lone unbeaten team.
“[It was] huge; you want to win the week,” Jahnz said of the win. “That's going to be big for the standings at the end of the year.
“There’s more pressure [in these games] and I like pitching with pressure.”
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Micah Cousineau plated Andrew Nocera, who reached on an error, in the first inning with a single up the middle. La Salle (4-5) answered in the bottom half of the second inning as Ed Walsh’s infield single scored Nate Bautista from third with two outs. The Rams left the bases loaded as Jahnz got La Salle to fly out to end the inning.
Thomas Malloy put La Salle ahead on the first pitch of the third inning with a towering home run to left field, but that was all La Salle could manage against Jahnz.
“A couple of bumps in the road early on but as we figured it out, he was nails,” Jahnz’s battery mate, Andrew Ray, said.
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Cumberland seized the lead in the fourth inning as Ray reached on an infield single and Joshua Lyon was hit by a pitch. Luke Plumer followed by scoring Ray with a sacrifice bunt. With two outs in the inning, Ryan Harris shot a single back up the middle to score Lyon for a 3-2 advantage.
“If it's off errors, if it's off bunting, if it's off home runs, or whatever, we don't really care as long as the guy gets across the plate,” Nocera said of manufacturing runs. “It doesn't matter because as long as you give [Jahnz] two or three runs, he's going to get the job done.”
Nocera, who leads off for Cumberland, drove in two runs with a single to right in the sixth and the Clippers capped the scoring on Plumer’s double down the first-base line in the seventh. The win followed Cumberland’s 8-3 defeat to North Kingstown on Tuesday.
“It's just next game mentality no matter if it's a win or loss,” Nocera said. “We're just here to have fun and obviously get the job done. Today we came out expecting to win, knowing that we were going to win and we have to play with that swagger.”
This season has been a bit different than Cumberland’s title run last spring that ended a 30-year championship drought. Last season the Clippers started just 4-5 through the first half of the year before finishing 7-2.
Through the first half of 2024, Cumberland has a 51-21 run differential and is third in league play behind Hendricken and South Kingstown.
“It doesn't remind me [of last year]; it feels like a completely different team,” Jahnz said. “But at the same time, I feel like we're always the same team no matter what.”
jrousseau@providencejournal.com
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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Cumberland takes baseball state championship rematch over La Salle
