Powers, Roulis roll over Muskrats

Roulis has started the summer 10-of-15. Dartmouth photo.

Vermont’s Damian Powers and Laconia’s Josh Moore produced an impressive pitchers duel, but a three-run eighth inning off of the Muskrats bullpen propelled the Mountaineers to Monday night’s 5-1 win.

Thomas Roulis continued his hot start to the season, drilling a two-out home run in the ninth to provide insurance and capping off a perfect 5-for-5 night.

Powers (1-0), making his Vermont debut, allowed just four hits over six shutout innings while striking out seven to earn the win. He escaped a jam in the third after giving up back-to-back singles by turning a triple play, snagging a popped up bunt and alertly firing to first to set into motion two more outs.

It was just the sixth triple play in NECBL history, three of which the Mountaineers have turned (the other two coming against Keene in 2008). Newport’s Jeff Miller also turned an unassisted triple play against Vermont in 2005.*

Roulis, meanwhile, continued his surge to open the season. The second basemen piled up five hits to run his season total to 10 through just three games. The solo home run with two outs in the ninth was a no-doubter, finishing off an excellent day at the plate.

Up and down the lineup, Vermont had pivotal hits from a variety of players. Garrett Copeland dropped a bloop single into right field with one out in the sixth inning to open the scoring for the Mountaineers, who had been held in check by a dominant start from Moore.

Moore (0-1) struck out nine and walked none over six innings, the lone blip in an otherwise spotless start was Copeland’s single. However, he was tagged with the loss despite allowing just a lone run as Powers kept the Muskrats off the scoreboard.

Vermont’s bats, entering the game having piled up 24 hits in their first two outings, tacked on three more runs in the eighth against reliever Bobby Kelly. Roulis scored off of an error at short, Kevin Stypulkowski followed up his four-RBI day with a RBI double that one-hopped the fence and Austin Clemons brought home another run with a sacrifice fly to center.

Garrison Banas, making his season debut out of the bullpen for the Mountaineers, ran into trouble in the eighth after a 1-2-3 seventh inning. Banas issued a walk and gave up a single before recording a walk, then aggravated the situation by hitting Laconia leadoff man James Davison.

Vermont manager Joe Brown went to the bullpen and reliever Sam Delaplane struck out two to escape the jam, but not before a run came home after he bobbled the throw back from the catcher. He struck out two more in a 1-2-3 ninth, running his season total to nine strikeouts in just 5 1/3 innings of work.

Having limited opponents to just one runs in back-to-back wins on the road, the Mountaineers (2-1) return home for a pair of games. They host Sanford at 6:30 p.m. tonight, a team they soundly beat 10-1 on Saturday. * (h/t to MountaineersTracker for the stat)