Yarmouth-Dennis won the Cape League Championship last year and, judging from their performance in a 4-1 victory over Chatham Saturday night, more hardware could be headed the Red Sox way in 2007.
Red Sox starter Steve Dodson (Georgia) threw six perfect frames until Richie Tri (Central Connecticut St.) walked to lead off the seventh. After Rob Papenhause (Brown) sacrificed Tri over to second and Allan Dykstra (Wake Forest) was hit by a pitch, Sean O'Brien (Virginia Tech) broke up the no-hitter with a single through the infield to plate the A's first run.
That run would prove to be all the offense for the home team, but Chatham had its chances against Y-D reliever Shawn Sanford (South Florida) in the ninth. The A's had the tying run at the plate with nobody out, but Sanford got Papenhause to fly out and struck out Dykstra looking.
O'Brien kept the rally alive with an infield single, his second hit of the night and Chatham's second hit overall, and the bases were juiced for Rob Pietroforte (Johns Hopkins). Red Sox pitching proved to be too tough, however, as Pietroforte struck out looking for the final out of the game.
Earlier in the evening, Y-D broke through against Chatham starter Chris Carpenter (Kent State). In the fourth, Collin Cowgill (Kentucky) picked up a leadoff single and stole second. He eventually came around to score on a two-base error by Chatham shortstop Trey Watten (Abilene Christian) and the Red Sox were on the board.
Y-D added two more in the sixth on a two-run bomb from Gordon Beckham (Georgia). The Bulldog came through again in the eighth inning with a RBI single to push the Red Sox cushion to three runs, which is how it ended.
Chatham hits the road Sunday and will look for its first win of 2007 against Eastern Division rival Orleans. First pitch at Eldredge Park is 7pm.
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