By Matt Stewart

The Lunenburg Blue Knights baseball team faced a tough battle Tuesday afternoon as it took on Division 1 perennial power Leominster High School. The game marked the first meeting of the two teams in over 25 years, but on this day the Blue Devil’s bats proved to have too much firepower, as Leominster captured the 12-2 victory at Doyle Field.

“That’s a great program over there (Leominster),” Lunenburg head coach Bob Robuccio said. “We will not face a better team than Leominster High School this year. We knew coming in that we were going to have to be perfect to stay with them. I think we were timid there in the beginning, almost like we were in over our heads, and hopefully they realize that we’re not. We didn’t get the hitting when we needed it, and you just can’t make mistakes with these guys (Leominster), and expect to win.

A massive fourth inning for Leominster, in which they scored seven runs helped to put the game out of reach. Three batters into the fourth inning, Leominster’s Tim Dewhurst (2 for 3, 2 RBI) laid down a bunt on a suicide squeeze, and beat out the errant throw to first to drive in a run, making the score 4-0 Blue Devils. Then the next batter, Alex Carrigan laid down a sacrifice bunt (on yet another suicide squeeze) to drive in Dewhurst, extending the lead to 5-0. Back-to-back walks set the stage for clean-up hitter Brice Erickson who connected on a bases clearing shot that deflected off the right fielder’s glove which made it 7-0. Then Lunenburg was hit with a devastating blow, after walking the next batter, when Peter Terrero crushed a 3-run home-run to complete the damage at 10-0.

“We had decent job by our pitcher, he wasn’t as sharp as he was last time out,” Leominster head coach Emile Johnson said. “We did some very good things yet our defense, still has got a ways to go. We had four errors in the game, and you can’t make those, but we’ve been making them and getting away with it. But we did a lot of things offensively at the proper times. I was happy with the two squeezes when the game was on the line, and it was executed well.”

Lunenburg’s ace Mike Xarras, ran into some problems with the high-powered Leominster offense. Xarras pitched three-and-two-thirds innings and allowed seven runs, on six hits, while striking out three, and walking six.