Baseball: Burlington Central rolls over Harvard

Updated: May 3, 2012 8:44PM

Burlington Central’s recent run of success showed no sign of slowing down Thursday.

The Rockets maintained their firm grip on first place in the Big Northern East by rolling past visiting Harvard 8-0. The victory was the sixth in a row for Burlington Central and its 12th in 13 games.

As has often been the case during the surge, the Rockets were sharp in all phases as they completed the two-game sweep of the Hornets. Michael Scott tossed a complete-game shutout on the mound and Blake Alexander went 3-for-4 with three RBI to pace his team’s 11-hit attack.

“We didn’t do anything spectacular offensively today,” Burlington Central coach Kyle Nelson said. “We just took quality at-bats and guys got good pitches to hit. When we were ahead in the count we made sure we got our pitch to swing at and when we were behind we were protecting and putting the ball in play.”

Burlington Central (19-6, 7-0) jumped out to a 3-0 in lead in the bottom of the first when Alexander connected for an RBI single to left and Scott followed with a two-run single through the left side of the infield. The Rockets pushed across five more runs in the fourth thanks to a string of six consecutive singles.

The production provided more than enough cushion for Scott (1-2), who finally picked up his first win of the year after three no-decisions. The junior struck out nine, walked one and allowed only three hits.

“I was using a lot of two-seam curve balls,” Scott said. “My slider seemed to be up a little bit because there was a lot of humidity, but the fastball was definitely on command.”

Cody Melson went 2-for-3 for Harvard (9-12-1, 4-4). Sophomore Matt Piechocki (5-2) took the loss after allowing eight earned runs in 3 2/3 innings.

“(Burlington Central’s) hits were dropping in there where we couldn’t get them and our hits were traveling right to them,” Harvard coach Dan Nolen said. “Hats off to them. That’s the way it goes.”

Zach Ranney (2-for-4), Ray Hunnicutt (two runs) and Josh Lung (two runs) were among the other offensive contributors for Burlington Central, which maintained its one-game lead on Richmond-Burton in the BNC East standings. Burlington Central travels to play at Richmond-Burton on Monday and can claim at least a share of the title with a win.

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