After Danbury hung up a four-spot in the top of the first, Sean Hogan and Ryan Higgins threw a combined seven innings of one-run ball to defeat the Mountaineers 4-2.
Danbury (9-9) earned a split on their Vermont road trip with the win, and Vermont (17-2) suffered their first loss since June 16.
Sean Hogan took advantage of an early lead and dominated in his outing. Outside of surrendering one run on two hits in the fourth, the Williams product retired twelve of the thirteen batters he faced and induced weak contact from the Mountaineers’ lineup. Hogan fanned three batters in 4.0 innings pitched, and he did not surrender a walk.
“It was great to get that early lead because it gave me a lot of confidence,” Hogan said. “My slider was working really well, so we went with a lot of off-speed tonight.”
Ryan Higgins (1-1) came in relief for Hogan and earned the win after throwing three innings of shutout ball. In those three innings, he quieted the Mountaineers’ bats by surrendering only two hits, walking two, and striking out three.
“I wanted to attack with my fastball,” Higgins said after the game. “There were times when my command was a bit scattered, but I was able to get it done.”
After getting off to a rocky start, Mountaineers’ starter Nick Durgin (2-1) lost his first game of the summer. His final line was 3.2 innings, four runs, four hits, four walks, and eight strikeouts.
Jackson Taylor had a monster night for the Westerners by going 3-4 with a double, and he had a clutch two-run single to put his ballclub up 4-0 in the first. Danbury’s second basemen boasts a .545 average with two doubles and three runs scored in his last three starts.
“I just tried to keep it simple and stick to my approach,” Taylor said after the win. “I was trying to stay down through the ball to get a lot of consistent contact.”
Westerners’ left fielder Jett Lovett also contributed offensively by going 1-3 with an RBI single and two walks, and right fielder Billy Gerlott recorded his third multi-hit game of the summer by going 2-5 with a double and a run scored in the first.
Vermont only recorded five hits against the Westerners’ pitching staff on Monday night. Mountaineers’ designated hitter Connor Hujsak went 2-5 with a run scored, and right fielder Stephen DiTomaso went 1-2 with two walks.
In the top of the first, Danbury’s lineup got off to a hot start by sending all nine batters to the plate. Westerners’ center fielder Jermaine White ignited the offense with a leadoff walk, and he would hustle to third on a Billy Gerlott double in the right-center gap. With runners on second and third and nobody out, Westerners’ first baseman Hank Thomas dumped an RBI single down the left-field line to put his team on the board.
Vermont settled in and chipped away at the deficit by plating a run in the bottom of the fourth. Mountaineers’ designated hitter Connor Hujsak roped a double down the left-field line to start the frame, and Ben Williamson drove him in with a one-out base hit up the middle. These were the first two hits Hogan conceded, but he finished his start strong by forcing two weak groundball outs to the third baseman.
After the Westerners coasted through the next four innings, the Mountaineers made things interesting with their last licks at the plate. Stephen DiTomaso started a two-out rally with a walk, and Connor Hujsak singled to put runners on first and second. The traffic on the basepaths forced Danbury to make a pitching change, so Billy Oldham entered the game to save the day. Oldham forced the first batter he faced to pop a ball up high in the air on the first base side, but the ball got lost in the lights and clanked off the first basemen’s glove in fair territory. One run scored on the error to make it 4-2, and Ben Williamson came up to the plate as the winning run. Williamson had an RBI single earlier in the game, but Oldham thwarted Vermont’s comeback and collected his first save by forcing him to ground out weakly to third.
The Westerners rebounded nicely with this big win, so they will look to keep the ball rolling when they travel back to the Hat City and take on the Upper Valley Nighthawks. The Nighthawks defeated Danbury in their first meeting, so Zach Grace will get the ball and try to split the season series. The first pitch will be thrown at 6:30 pm ET.