UPPER TOWNSHIP — Friday night at Amanda’s Field was more than another baseball game for the Red Raiders when they took on the Caper Tigers of Lower Cape May Regional High School.
The Ocean City High School team was there to honor former player Kyle Andrews in his hometown.
All of the Red Raiders, players and coaches, wore No. 12 in a tribute to Andrews, a 2013 Ocean City High School graduate who passed away in 2021 at the age of 27.
Before the game started, Ocean City head coach Andrew Bristol gave a speech to the crowd about Andrews’ legacy and later spoke about his relationship with the young man.
“It’s a special night every year and Kyle was one of my all-time favorite kids,” Bristol said after the game. “We remained close well after he graduated. He was like a son to me. I always checked in on him. It’s special to me to play this game in his honor because he loved this game so much.”
One of Andrews’ former teammates, Michael Inacio, threw out the first pitch to get the game under way.
Ocean City pitchers Nolan Boushard and Preston Pahang combined to pitch a shutout as the Raiders took down the Caper Tigers 3-0.
Boushard pitched five innings for his longest outing of the season. He surrendered four hits but struck out three batters and never let a runner reach third base.
“We are a little banged up on our pitching staff and with our fourth game this week we didn’t really know what we had left in the tank,” Bristol said. “We needed Boush to come in and eat some innings and he did that.”
Boushard gave the Raider bats plenty of time to get settled in, but it was Colin Thompson’s heads-up base running that got the Raiders on the board first.
Thompson drew a walk in the bottom of the second inning before stealing second base. With two outs in the inning, a pitch got behind the catcher and Thompson easily made it to third. He then made a sudden dash toward home with the ball in the catcher’s glove and beat out the tag for an early 1-0 Raider lead.
“Colin is a spark that we try to get going,” Bristol said. “When he gets going, the rest of the team feeds off that energy and he had that tonight from the get-go. When you set that tone, it’ll be contagious. We hit the ball hard tonight and just had to grit a couple of runs across.”
Thompson later drove in Ocean City’s second run of the game with a hard-hit single to left field. Evan Taylor easily trotted home from third base and eventually Thompson was brought home again after a perfectly placed bunt by Cole Laursen.
Caper Tigers
Lower’s offense had a few hard-hit balls that nearly became game-changing home runs.
Caper Tiger Ty Heacock crushed a ball to deep center field that would have tied it up at 1-1. However, the wall was barely deep enough for the ball to stay within the park and was caught by Ocean City. The freshman needed another 5 yards — at most —for a trip around the bases.
Matt DiCave reached base twice for the Caper Tigers to try to help his own cause as the team’s starting pitcher. The senior pitched four full innings, giving up six hits with four strikeouts. His aggressive pitching style has earned him a staggering 65 strikeouts this year with three games so far where he has eclipsed 12 or more Ks.
Another solid pitcher for the Caper Tigers, Aydan Heacock, did not get to face off against Ocean City as he pitched a complete game a day prior. He went all seven innings in a 3-2 win over Atlantic Tech to snap an eight-game skid.
DiCave has been a Swiss Army knife for the Caper Tigers all season long; he not only leads the team in innings pitched and strikeouts but also has a team-high 20 hits at the plate.
Before the top of Lower’s batting order could get another look at Boushard, freshman pitcher Pahang came in as the Ocean City closer. DiCave drew a walk out of Pahang in the sixth inning, but it was not enough to throw off the Raiders’ young pitcher.
Pahang continued the strong start to his career with four strikeouts in two innings with only one hit.
Bristol praised Pahang’s performance.
“Preston pitched Monday and pitched really well, so he felt he was ready to come back for a little bit. He was dealing today and came in and threw some pellets,” Bristol said.
After a busy stretch in which they played four games in five days, the Raiders will start their late-season schedule with a record of 7-10. The Raiders will play against their last conference opponent of the regular season on May 9 as they travel to Holy Spirit High School. Game time is set for 4 p.m.
Lower fell to 4-13 with the loss but still has eight more games left in the regular season to get back on track. The Caper Tigers will take part in an In-Season Tournament starting May 10 with their first opponent being Wildwood High School.
Lower swept the season series last year against Wildwood and will look to do it again at home versus the Warriors. Game time is set for 3 p.m.
By WILLIAM TRUITT/For the Star and Wave
