Ellington Baseball Routs Granby

Friday afternoon was just one of those days for the  baseball team, which was routed by 16-1 in Granby.

Indeed, it seemed like the Knights did everything - pitch, defend and hit - right, while the Bears couldn’t seem to catch a break.

The end result was the worst loss of the season for Granby, which saw its record dip below .500 at 7-8.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed in our play today,” Bears head coach Chris Saunders said. “The flip side is we made a couple of mistakes and Ellington took advantage of them. They earned it. They hit the ball extremely well today.”

The Knights score six runs in the fourth inning to break open what was until that point a 1-0 game. Ellington put the game completely out of reach in the fifth by scoring another six runs to make it 13-0.

After Granby got its first run in the bottom of the fifth on a Matt Holmes double, Ellington’s Jake Gagne (2-for-5, double, homer, 6 RBIs) delivered the game’s big blow - a 3-run homerun to left center - in the top of the sixth to cap the scoring.

Troy Russell was 3-for-4 with two doubles a walk and 3 RBIs for the Knights (13-2) and Justin Oliver had a pair of RBI singles.

Ellington head coach Keith Tautkus said that he was a little surprised by his team’s output.

“I wasn’t expecting that at all,” Tautkus said. “We’ve been struggling a little bit with hitting. We’ve been spending a lot of time in the cage working on some things. It was good to see us come out and hit the ball pretty good today.”

Gagne was also the Knights’ starting pitcher, allowing one run on three hits, while striking out seven over five innings of work to earn the victory.

Granby, for its part, will regroup for next week, according to Saunders.

“You try to tell [the players] not to get discouraged,” Saunders said. “You turn the page and say this is what we need to work on, go back to work and straighten it out for next week.”