LAWRENCEVILLE — Playing in one of their tightest games yet this season, the Pennington and Lawrenceville School varsity baseball teams had to keep moving forward when they found their Mid-Atlantic Prep League contest at James C. Waugh Field Monday tied after four innings. The undefeated Red Hawks, who had beaten the Big Red by the 10-run rule in five innings April 3, had to get their offense going. But even as they did, L’ville refused to go away quietly, making Pennington settle for an 11-5 win when all was said and done. “I’m confident in my team,” junior right-handed pitcher/outfielder Braeden Leeds said. “We’ve had a couple of games where we started slow in the beginning, but we’ve picked it up. We come up with hits when we should.” As the starting pitcher and leadoff hitter for head coach Steve Kowalski’s Red Hawks on this day, Leeds gave the visitors a double boost. He led off the game with a double to center field, read a ball in the dirt and advanced to third base, then scored when No. 2 hitter Landon Hallett lofted a sacrifice fly. Then Leeds went about stranding three runners in scoring position over the first two innings to preserve Pennington’s 1-0 lead. “For me, that double was big because to get a one-run cushion on the mound to start the game takes such a weight off your shoulders as a pitcher,” Leeds said. “We play with a lot of energy, which helps us as the game goes on.” Yet, even though the Red Hawks increased their lead against Big Red pitcher Matthew Trucano to 2-0 when Landon Hallett was hit by a pitch with two outs in the top of the third before being doubled home by Joe Lifsted, the home team cut the lead in half in the bottom of the frame when Matei Vasiliu scored an unearned run with two outs. Another unearned run in the fourth knotted the game at 2 when Jack Devigne laid down a perfect squeeze bunt to plate Will Rue. That seemed to awaken the visitors a little more as a single by Joey Riley and a double by Chase Hallett opened the fifth inning before a sacrifice fly from Jamir Conover and an RBI single from Leeds doubled Pennington’s lead. However, head coach Steve LaRochelle’s L’ville club would not go away, getting its deficit back down to one run when Chris Trucano doubled home Jack Pintimalli in the bottom of the fifth before Trucano was stranded at third base. “The last time we played them, we had a lot of infield errors,” said Devigne, a senior who moved into the outfield for the Big Red as the game went on. “We liked this performance better. I feel like we were in the game. We just have to execute with our bats more with runners in scoring position.” After a double and stolen base by relief pitcher Anthony Woo in the sixth, Devigne provided another RBI by beating out an infield single. Yet, the single runs Lawrenceville added against Pennington’s young relief pitcher Chase Hallett (who turns 14 Tuesday) in the sixth and seventh (on Chris Trucano’s solo home run) could not match the seven other runs the Red Hawks added during that time. A two-run single by Riley and a two-run double by Chase Hallett off reliever Gray Devine upped Pennington’s lead to 8-3 in the sixth. A monstrous two-run homer by Lifsted, the sixth of the senior outfielder’s season, and another run which scored on a wild pitch, kept the visitors moving forward a little more than the home team. Pennington (10-0)           101    024    3    —    11  10  3 Lawrenceville(2-5)           001    111    1    —      5    8  1 2B: Leeds, Lifsted, CHallett 2 (P), Rue, CTrucano, Woo (L); HR: Lifsted (P), CTrucano (L); RBIs: Leeds, LHallett, Lifsted 3, Riley 2, CHallett 2, Conover (P), CTrucano 2, Devigne 2 (L). WP — Leeds (3-0); LP — MTrucano (2-2). ...read more read less