Clippers Sail On Under Malenfant, Qualify for the
2012 State Tournament and Prepare to Defend Title
The 2012 season has started in a quality manner for the Clippers who sit at 11-2 overall and in first place in the CAL II at 7-2 and have qualified for the State Tournament. This past week the Clippers played the equivalent of four games with a 4-3 14-inning win against Pentucket following by a 4-2 quality win against North Andover and another on Saturday against Georgetown 4-1. In addition Brett Fontaine got his 14th and 15th wins in a row since last season and has a 6-0 record in 2012, carrying a 0.92 ERA and 42 strikeouts. Colby Morris is 3-1 with a 1.20 ERA and Connor MacRae has a 0.53 ERA and a 2-0 record with a yeomanlike effort with a nine-plus inning outing against Pentucket after victories against Amesbury and Hamilton-Wenham.
Offensively, Colton Fontaine has 15 hits and a .326 average for the Clippers while Cam Caldwell has nine hits and a .450 average. Colton and Ian Michaels lead the Clippers in rbis with right while Colton has the only homerun of the year for the team. Colby Morris has a three-game winning hits and RBIs while Brett Fontaine has the winning RBI in two games. Brett and Jimmy Conway are tied for second in RBIs with five apiece.
The Clippers has given up an average of 2.17 runs per game and 1.17 earned runs per game. Credit for that can go to the pitching staff backstopped by catcher Jimmy Conway and the outstanding overall defense of the Clippers across the outfield with starters Mike Sweeney, Ian Michaels, and Cam Caldwell. Ben Greene and Evan Habib have been terrific contributors fefensively with Habib a catalyst in the early portion of the season and Greene over the last four games. Every time Greene has served as the catalyst for the team in the past three games with critical basehits and at bats.
A critical stretch is ahead of the Clippers with key CAL games against Ipswich, Masconomet, and Amesbury in the next two weeks. Next week the Clippers have four home consecutive home games and will face Ipswich on Tuesday, Dave Wilbur's (NHS, '70) Beverly Panthers on Thursday, Masconomet on Saturday, and Maimonides on Sunday. The Clippers finish up the CAL season on the following Tuesday against River Rival Amesbury. The following weekend the Clippers will play Triton in the first game of the Spofford Tournament on May 26 and play the winner of the Ipswich-Georgetown contest on Monday May 28.
