Upper Cape baseball beats Sturgis in the 7th inning behind pitching and defense

BOURNE — The Upper Cape baseball team now stands alone.

After the Rams' 3-2 victory over Sturgis on Monday, they are now the only unbeaten team left on Cape Cod.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Rams have started the season 6-0 for the first time in the program.

Upper Cape head coach Gabe Coutinho said the early success has been because of two things.

“The defense and pitching has been the story really,” Coutinho said. “Our pitching has just been great. Not a lot of walks, and just throwing strikes. The field has been good.”

The Rams needed the two things that have them undefeated in their win over Sturgis.

Upper Cape Closes Strong

The Rams pitching and defense held Sturgis scoreless as they headed into the bottom of the sixth inning with a 1-0 lead.

Sturgis did not go down quietly as they scored two runs in the sixth and had their first lead of the game.

Now, the Rams had one inning to keep their five game win streak alive.

Coutinho said before the Rams went into the seventh inning, he huddled them up and kept it simple.

“What’s better than a comeback win? Let's go and get it done,” Coutinho said.

The Rams picked up one run on an error by Sturgis as Mitchell Kirkland stole home from third base.

Now, the score was tied 2-2.

Tyler Kutil was the starting pitcher, but now he had the opportunity to give his team a lead.

“Tyler has been a great pitcher,” Coutinho said. “He’s thrown strikes and mixes his ball around, and he’s probably one of our best hitters too.”

Kutil stepped up to the plate, after nearly pitching a complete game, and hit a RBI double that was the winner for the Rams.

As far as Kutil being effective on the mound and at the plate, he said he uses them together.

“If I start doing bad at one of them, I just think, do better on the other one and level it all out,” Kutil said. “When I’m doing good in both, I just try to keep it up.”

Kutil held Sturgis to zero runs over the first five innings, but was relieved in the sixth inning by Devyn Schulze.

“We have to keep it there and don’t let them get anymore (runs),” Schulze said about closing the game out.

Schulze, along with the defense of the Rams, gave up no runs in the bottom of the seventh.

The comeback was complete.

Upper Cape Win Streak

The Rams look to remain as the lone unbeaten team on Cape, but this will be their hardest stretch of the schedule as they play four games in five days.

The good part about is that all the games will be played on the Rams' home field.

As far as the win streak goes, Coutinho said the goal is to “win the next game.”

When it comes to the rest of the season, it's about how you start, but how you finish.

“We want to finish strong. We’re hoping to host in the states (tournament),” Coutinho said.

Sturgis' Break Too Long?

Sturgis played in their first game in 11 days (April 11).

They have only played in three games, while every other team on Cape has played in at least four.

Although they started off slowly with no runs, they started playing better as the game went on.

“We had a week layoff and we haven’t played any games, so they started to get their bat on the ball and we came through with some clutch hits,” Sturgis head coach Larry Shell said.

Coutinho even noticed the fight in Sturgis in the game and said he has a lot of respect for them.

“They’re a good, scrappy team,” Coutinho said. “They threw strikes, made all their plays, and it just came down to a play here and there. That's baseball. We certainly could have been on the losing side for sure.”

Moving forward, Shell said that Sturgis can not give up runs late in the game like they did against Upper Cape if they want to be successful.

“We have to play solid defense, make the plays we can make and not give away freebies,” Shell said. “We’re not constructed offensively to score a lot of runs, but we have to play solid defense.”

Contact Courtney Jacobs at cjacobs@capecodonline.com. Follow him on X/Twitter: @CJ_Journalist.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Upper Cape baseball wins 6th straight to remain undefeated