'I was in the zone today': Coco gives Leominster some relief as Leominster gets past Doherty

WORCESTER — It was a cold, dreary, rainy, see-your-breath spring day.

So, a great one for a mug of hot Coco.

Senior righthander Alex Coco pitched 3⅓ scoreless innings as the Leominster High baseball team pulled away for a 7-2 win over Doherty on Thursday afternoon in a non-league matchup at the Foley Stadium athletic complex.

“The energy was up in the dugout,” Coco said. “I always have my teammates’ support and I can’t thank the coaches enough for backing us all. I’m pulling for my teammates and they’re pulling for me.

“Curveball felt great, fastball felt great. I was in the zone today, so a great day for the team. I love playing with these guys.”

Coco came on with two outs and the bases loaded in the fourth inning and the Blue Devils leading, 4-2. He needed four pitches to get out of the jam.

All told, Coco threw 41 pitches while retiring 10 of 12 batters, including the last seven. He surrendered a single to sophomore Marcus Vargas and then hit senior Aiden Murphy (2 walks, 2 runs) in the fifth before recording the second of his three strikeouts to extinguish the threat.

“His confidence is through the roof,” coach Rich Barnaby said. “He’s always been a great competitor, he just had to believe in himself as much as we believe in him.

“Then he got up to the plate (in the sixth) and got a single. We never let him hit, so for him to do that. He’s playing with so much confidence in himself. He’s going to help us win a lot of games.”

The win was the third straight for the Blue Devils following a season-opening, 4-3 loss to Oakmont Regional in which they committed six errors.

They’ve allowed four runs and been charged with four miscues over the past three games.

“We’ve been leaning on the pitching staff a lot and today the offense, that was probably some of the best approaches we’ve had,” said Barnaby, who saw sophomore starter Mark Garner depart in the fourth with tightness in his throwing arm.

“We did a great job of creating pressure on the bases, too. We know if we can get four or five runs with our pitching staff we’re going to be OK.”

The Blue Devils stole eight bases with junior Reece Lora accounting for half the thefts after reaching base three times (single, 2 walks). They only had six hits ‒ to go with five walks and two hit batters ‒ but four were with two outs and plated at least a run.

Senior Angel Baez singled home two runs in the third to make it 3-1 and saw a liner hug the third-base line for an RBI single to extend the advantage to 5-2 in the fifth before scoring from second on an infield grounder by senior Zach Casey with the hit-and-run on.

“I felt comfortable up there,” said Baez, the reigning Hometeam Player of the Year. “Both came with two strikes. Coach preaches that a lot, ‘Choke up with two strikes in the box and just try to do something for the team.’ ”

Casey also had an RBI single with two outs in the third and sophomore Danny Nelson plated a run with an infield single with two outs in the fifth to close out the scoring

It was the third consecutive setback for the Highlanders and their second in 24 hours after opening the season with a pair of convincing Inter-High victories.

They dropped a 12-1 decision to Grafton on Wednesday, which led first-year coach Brian Sargent to challenge his team.

“We got beat up pretty good and kind of laid into them a little bit about how, ‘You have to want to compete,’ ”

Sargent said “We were 4-2 in this one in the fourth, we were right there, and kind of gave away a couple of outs.

“You have to take advantage of what they give you sometimes and we didn’t. (The final score) is what it is, but I was very happy with how we competed. It’s still a loss, but we can build on this.”

The Highlanders got solid outings from junior Sam Conrad, who started, and sophomore Ayden Duayns, who went the final four innings in relief and delivered a two-out, run-scoring single to make it 4-2 in the fourth.

Defensively, Sargent praised the play of Marcus Vargas, one of four sophomores to start, in center field.

—Contact Rich Garven at rgarven@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @RichGarvenTG.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Coco gives Leominster some relief as Leominster gets past Doherty