Team Info

The Keene SwampBats hit four home runs on Friday night as they defeated their division rival Vermont Mountaineers 16-9.

Vermont jumped out to an early lead when the first batter of the game singled, and the second batter hit a home run just over the left-center field fence. Keene starter Ben Shenosky, who just transferred from Wake Forest to Penn State, responded impressively by striking out the next three batters. The SwampBats, who wore special edition pink jerseys on the night to memorialize cancer victims and honor survivors, responded in the bottom of the first. Ripken Reese (Kent State) doubled Bryce Molinaro (Penn State) over to third base and Molinaro scored on a wild pitch. The Mountaineers hit another two-run home run in the top of the second to go ahead 4-1.

A borderline strike-three call in the bottom of the third appeared to fire up the SwampBats as after Joe Jaconski (Penn State) was hit by a pitch, Molinaro ripped a double to the wall in right-center field. Then Reese drilled a home run over the fence in right-center field to tie the game up at four. One batter later, Alex Calarco (Maryland) smashed another home run into the Alumni Field parking lot to make it 5-4 Keene. The energy in the SwampBats’ dugout ramped up with the team’s third back-to-back home runs in the first eight games. Vermont took the momentum right back though in the top of the fourth. They strung together five singles in the inning for a total of four runs, going ahead 8-5. In the bottom half, Nick Romano (Florida Atlantic) chopped a one-out double over first base, and Alex Alicea (Louisville) followed with a walk. After a pitching change, Jaconski stepped up as the tying run. He drilled a 1-2 pitch over the center field fence to tie the game at eight. After the game, Jaconski said “[the pitcher] was going heavy fastball, I swung through a fastball at the top of the zone, got to two strikes, tried my best to get on top of one and see what I could do with it, I got on top of it and got it out.”

In the bottom of the fifth, the SwampBats took the lead when Calarco hustled home from third on a throw to first base after a dropped third strike. Romano then lined a single up the middle to drive in Andrew Wiggins (Indiana) and make it 10-8. The runs quieted a Vermont dugout that had been chirping at the SwampBats and the umpires all game. The Mountaineers got a run back in the top of the sixth on a groundout, but that was all Stephen Bangs (Franklin Pierce) gave up over three and one-third innings of relief, earning the win. In the bottom half, Keene scored four more times as they took advantage of some Vermont mistakes. The runs came home on an error, back-to-back wild pitches, and an RBI groundout by Navy’s Victor Izquierdo. The score was 14-9 SwampBats after six innings. Jake Koonin (Princeton) came off the bench to slug a two-run home run into the trees in center field in the eighth inning to put the icing on the cake for Keene. Jaden Varner pitched two and one-third scoreless innings to close it out, while the Vermont dugout got a stern warning as they took out their frustrations on the umpire in the top of the ninth.

Keene now sports the best record in the NECBL at 6-2, and visits Sanford Saturday evening. They return home on Monday night for a rescheduled game against the Upper Valley Nighthawks.