Mother Nature has been the story of the season so far and that remained an issue as the Bears baseball squad entered region play.  A game that was scheduled to be played at Centennial Thursday, March 5th was moved to the Lakepoint Sports Complex to avoid rain in the area.  Even that move didn't work as fog drifted in and halted that game with Cambridge up 3-1 in the fifth.  The GHSA ruled the game needed to be re-played again from inning one and meant Cambridge and Centennial had to play another game on Saturday, but not after the Bears played a game Friday night, March 6th at Alpharetta.  When all was said and done, Cambridge split the two games to move to 2-1 in region play.

 

 

Cambridge was playing effectively its third region game of the week, while this served as the region opener for the Raiders.  The Bears sent righty Matt Faby to the mound for his first start of the season.

 

Cambridge jumped out to a quick lead in the first.  Ryan Todd coaxed a leadoff walk to set the stage.  Hot-hitting Cody Rech lofted a triple to right that brought Todd home for a 1-0 lead.  Faby was on early before allowing a tying run in the second on a couple of hits.  He pitched another scoreless inning in the third and the game remained at 1-1.

 

The home team exploded in the fourth, courtesy of two huge Cambridge errors.  When the dust settled, Alpharetta had pushed across nine unearned runs and the game was out of reach at 10-1.  The Raiders added another run in the fifth to end the game at 11-1.

 

Faby took the loss for Cambridge.  Rech and Jared Spears had the lone hits for the Bears.

 

 

Mother Nature wasted a fine pitching performance from Tommy Fester on Thursday as he went four solid innings allowing a run on four hits with six strikeouts.  Unavailable for this game due to that outing, the Bears sent senior lefty Johnny Eneberg to the mound.

 

The Bears offense was potent this day, producing one of the top hitting performances in many years.  They would need most of those runs in what was a back and forth affair lasting 3 1/2 hours.  An infield single by Todd, an error and a Rech single loaded the bases for the visitors in the first.  Faby then lined a single to center to drive in the game's first run.  Sophomore Alex Moulter then proceeded to produce one of the best at bats of the season before lofting the twelfth pitch he saw into left for a sac fly and a 2-0 Cambridge lead.  The rally stalled out there, however.

 

Centennial responded in a big way in the bottom of the first, pushing across six runs on seven hits to take a 6-2 lead.  Brian Drymalski relieved Eneberg and closed out the inning.  But the Cambridge offense was just getting started.

 

Grayson Dato and Jayden Carbonell-Smith singled to start the inning before Dato scored on a Todd groundout.  Spears then doubled in Carbonell-Smith to cut the score to 6-4.  A Faby single and a Moelter walk loaded the bases for senior shortstop Jackson Woods.  Woods took a 1-2 pitch and launched a grand slam to left, pushing the Bears back into the lead at 8-6.  Nicholas Armstrong kept things going with a double before a balk pushed the final run of the inning across.

 

Spears entered the mound for the first time on the season and tossed a scoreless second inning to keep the score at 9-6.  Back to back doubles by Spears and Rech in the third pushed another across.  An error and a Moelter double added two more before a Dato single pushed the score to 13-6 for the visitors.  Centennial picked up a run in the bottom of the inning.  Cambridge tallied four hits and three runs in the fourth, with a Woods double the highlight.

 

The home team cut the lead to 16-10 in the bottom of the fourth.  Cambridge got one of those back in the fifth courtesy of another Rech double.  The Bears scored three more in the sixth highlighted by a monster two-run home run to left by Carbonell-Smith and the score stood at 20-10.  The home team added a final run in the sixth to close out the scoring with a much needed 20-11 region win for the Bears.

 

Drymalski secured the win for Cambridge, the first of his career.  The offense tallied 23 hits to drive in its 20 runs.  Carbonell-Smith, Dato, Rech, Spears and Faby each had three hits on the game.  Woods had two hits and five RBI, including the grand slam.  Moelter drove in three.  Armstrong, Moelter and Woods had doubles, while Rech and 

Spears each had two.  Carbonell-Smith had his first career homer and Spears scored four times.

 

 

Cambridge continues region play with a crucial second game versus Alpharetta at home on Monday, March 9th.  Game time is 5:55 PM.

 

Go Bears!