MARBLEHEAD — Pennies are made of copper and dimes are made of nickel alloy. The Coyne residing in the Marblehead dugout, though, was made of steel on Monday afternoon.
A sophomore right-hander, Coyne displayed nerves of steel in a challenging situation against Salem High. He struck out five and stranded four Witches on base to earn a six-out save in his team’s 4-1 victory.
The Witches (1-3) were the home team despite playing a rare varsity game on the lower field behind Marblehead High. Watery conditions at both Gallows Hill Park in Salem and the Magicians’ regular home field, Seaside Park, necessitated the change, which saw Salem threaten in the bottom of the seventh.
Back-to-back infield singles by Shea Christel and Rocco Ryan brought the tying run to the dish, but Coyne got back-to-back strikeouts to end the ballgame. That came after entering with a man aboard in the sixth and working around a walk to get out of trouble, keeping the Magicians (3-2) ahead.
“We don’t have a lot of guys with experience in those high leverage spots,” said Marblehead coach Mike Giardi, “and sometimes, with a sophomore, they don’t realize the pressure of it and they perform better. Owen certainly did and, before him, J.J. Downey did a really good job in the fifth.”
Senior Carter Sahagian has earned each of Marblehead’s three wins this year and grabbed another Monday with four innings of 2-hit, five strikeout work. Giardi didn’t want to push his pitch count this early in the season, and the Marblehead bullpen delivered.
Offensively, the Magicians sort of bled the Witches out by scratching across single runs in four different innings. Rory Zampese’s third inning double produced the go-ahead run when he came around on a wild pitch. Colt Wales (reached on error) did the same, as did Cam Quigley, who was 2-for-2 with a walk, three steals and a run scored.
Salem, meanwhile, couldn’t quite find a big hit with runners on base. The Witches stranded nine total, with six of those on second or third base. Senior captain Jordan O’Malley’s deep double that hopped the fence for an RBI made it 1-1 in the second and was Salem’s only hit of the day with a man in scoring position.
“For us, it’s all about putting it together for seven innings,” said Salem coach Matt Hubauer. “We’ve done that once, and that was our win. We have 3-4 good innings every game, but not seven.”
Ryan, Salem’s senior righty, impressed while striking out four over three innings and limiting Marblehead to two earned runs. He worked around five walks and showed off some strong secondary offerings.
“I was really impressed with Rocco,” said Giardi. “I love watching him compete in every sport. Today, he looked like a pitcher and not a thrower. He did a really good job of keeping up off-balance.”
Jack Tsoutsouras worked the last two frames and kept Salem in the game. His only mistake was a full count pitch that Stef Shepard blasted to the fence in left for a triple, scoring scored Greyson Leventhal (fielder’s choice) for a pad run in the top of the seventh.
Christel was 3-for-4 with a double for Salem, which had five total hits. Defensively, shortstop Kevin Soto was helped spark a pair of run-saving double plays for the Witches — but his best defensive play saw him range behind the pitcher’s mound and fire a dart home to cut down a run on a hard ground ball in the seventh.
“Kevin attacks the ball, he has a canon and he knows what plays to make with his high IQ,” Hubauer said. “This was one of our better games, defensively, front to back.”
Ethan Hardwood added a single for Marblehead, which saw seven of its nine starters reach base via hit or walk and employed three pitches that combined for 11 strikeouts against just three walks.
“It’s a team win,” said Giardi. “I told our guys we really don’t have that big-time Jeff Juden, Doug Canney-type that’s going to carry us. To win games, we’re doing to need a lot of different people to contribute and this was a great example of that.”