By Jon Sargalis

Box Score

Glens Falls - The Mohawks and their league leading pitching staff pitched a shutout in Glens Falls.

Taylor Blatch (Florida State) and Thomas Hackimer (St. John’s) combined to throw a 4-hit shutout in a 7-0 Mohawk victory over the Glens Falls Golden Eagles on Monday night at East Field.

Taylor Blatch was dominate as he pitched 6 innings allowing 2 hits and 3 walks with 5 strikeouts en route to his fourth victory of the season. Blatch now joins his Amsterdam teammate EJ Ashworth and Mohawk Valley’s Evan Davis as the only pitchers with 4 wins in the PGCBL. Blatch also lowered his ERA to 1.64 which is now the fifth best in the league among qualifying pitchers (1.0 IP/Team Game).

Thomas Hackimer was just as effective for the Mohawks as he pitched the final 3 innings, allowing 2 hits and 1 hit batter with 4 strikeouts, as he earned his second save of the season. With the shutout, the Mohawks lowered their league leading ERA to 2.42.

The game was a pitcher’s duel early on, as the first hit of the game didn’t come until the bottom of the third inning off of a leadoff single by Glens Falls’ Brandon Purcell (Georgia College) that got through the left side.

The Mohawks waited until the fifth inning to break up the no-hit bid that Glens Falls’ Williams Durruthy (Florida International) was working on. JaVon Shelby (Kentucky) not only broke up the no-hitter, but ended the chance for a shutout as he cracked his first home run of the season over the left field fence.

The Mohawks added 2 unearned runs in the seventh as Marcus Carson (Kentuckuy) reached base with 2 outs due to an error by second basemen Mark Powell (Bucknell).  After Carson stole second; Joey Aiola (Marist) followed with an RBI single and Jonathan Pryor (Wake Forest) followed that with an RBI double to drive in Aiola.

The Mohawks held on to a 3-0 lead until the ninth inning when 4 more unearned runs scored. Again, with 2 outs Jonathan Pryor reached first after a throwing error by Golden Eagles short stop JQ Folena (Cabrillo) that allowed Alex DeBellis (Lynn University) to score. Jake Salpietro (Fairfield) then hit a 2-run single that scored Pryor and Carson and Josh Gardiner (Radford) toped it off with an RBI single that scored Salpietro.

Josh Gardiner got a night off from the field as he was in the lineup as the designated hitter; he went 2-for-4 with and increased his league leading batting average to .449.

For Glens Falls; Williams Durruthy was the tough luck loser, as he now falls to 2-1 on the season. He lasted 6 innings, allowed 2 hits; one of which was the Shelby home run the ended the no-hit bid in the fifth. That was also the only run Durruthy allowed as he walked 3 and struck out 5.

Brandon Purcell led the Glens Falls offense as he collected 2 of the Golden Eagles’ 4 hits.

With the win, the Mohawks improve to 15-7 on the season and sit a half game behind division leading Mohawk Valley in the East. Glens Falls drops to 8-13 and are in fourth place, now 7 games back.

Both teams will meet again at Shuttleworth Park on Tuesday night for a 6:35 PM matchup. It will be Military Tuesday, Free Ice Cream Night, Game Show Night and the Amsterdam Rookies will be the Mohawks Baseball Buddies.

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