Doyle’s dinger sets tempo for Panthers’ pummeling of Wildcats

CHATHAM –– Caleb Doyle set the stage for a lopsided contest early in Monday’s  Patroon Conference showdown with Maple Hill when the Chatham junior knocked a solo shot off the first pitch of the day from Alec Yager in the bottom of the first inning.

“It was the first good pitch I thought I could hit, ” th e 5’8″sensation said post game. “I swung at it as hard as I could.”

Doyle’s homer came as the first run in a Panthers attack that when the fat lady sang came up with an 18-2 stumping of the Wildcats. Other than a pair of dingers he collected as a 12-year-old, on a smaller field, it was also brought the 16-year-old his first ever career home run.

“It’s very relieving to know that I can do it,” Doyle went on to say. ” It’s always been a goal that I’ve never achieved.”

Despite their struggles, nine errors in total, the Wildcats never backed down, and for a second in the top of the third, it looked like they might make a resurgence when senior ace Kris Kretzschmar led the inning off with a double, down  4-1. But the comeback was short-lived as Kretzcshmar would be the only man to come home.

Again in the fourth, now down 6-1, the kids from Castleton showed promise when junior Alec Yager also led off with a double. If the Wildcats weren’t lucky the first time, I’m not exactly sure how you would classify what happened next. Caught in a pickle between second and third base, the hockey player (outside of school) worked up a sweat only to get tagged out and in the process end up on the losing end of a bad “cleat” to the lower body.  He left the game with the assistance of head coach Rico Frese and fellow eleventh grader Nick Butler.

Senior utility player Noah Roberts finally gave the Wildcat faithful something to cheer about in the top of the fifth, scoring from second to make it a 9-2 ball game.

A five-run scoring run from Chatham in the bottom of the inning quickly turned Roberts’ glimmer of hope into a distant memory.

Coach Frese used embarrassing and mortifying in the same sentence when meeting with his team between innings.

Dylan Chesnut then came into pitch the remainder of the game for Maple Hill. The junior made headlines in 2015 when he had this “close encounter” last Spring at the junior varsity level:

@Dylan_Chesnut might not be able to have kids after this pic.twitter.com/dBEnQDsLZ6

— D. ROSS (@DROSS1222) April 25, 2015

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Perhaps today’s loss excreted feelings he would have felt had the ball actually hit him “down there.”

The Wildcats have an opportunity to avenge the loss Wednesday, when they host Chatham at 4:15 p.m. at  Canonica  Field.

-Dylan Rossiter – @ByDylanRossiter – [email protected]