Jupiter Bounces Back, Knocks Off Archbishop McCarthy

Losses are rare and home losses even rarer for the Archbishop McCarthy Mavericks.

But Wednesday night, the Mavs were facing a team hungry to win.

One night after being handed its first loss of the season, Jupiter’s third long drive home in as many days surely seemed a lot shorter on Wednesday.

That’s because the Warriors rebounded in fantastic fashion with a 4-1 victory against three-time defending state champions Archbishop McCarthy in each team’s third game of the Selective Recruiting/Sir Pizza Invitational.

For Jupiter, the win was a measuring stick.

“This win was big, because I wanted to see what we have,” winning manager Andy Mook said. “They proved that, hey, you know what, let’s step it up and go right back at it again. Our defense stepped up, our pitchers hit our spots and our hitters swung the bat real well.”

The Fry twins both played monster roles in the win, as Lance started, allowing just one run on five hits while striking out eight over four innings. Meanwhile, his brother Kevin blasted a two-run homer in the second to give Jupiter a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

“He (Mavs starter Andres Nunez) hung a changeup and I just got it really good. It’s a great feeling when you know you got it,” said Kevin about his round-tripper.

Nunez’s mistake to Fry was followed in the third by another Warriors run.

Cleanup hitter Johnny McCarthy turned nicely on a pitch and clubbed a double into the left field corner that scored Kyle Vesnesky, who had a great night with three walks, a double and two runs scored.

Lance Fry ran into a bit of trouble himself in the second and fourth innings, when he managed to get out of jams with multiple runners on, but a run in that fourth was all he would allow.

“I had all four pitches working, even though I lived outside the zone a little bit,” said Fry.

After that run, Jupiter (14-1, 4-0, #1 in Palm Beach Power Rankings) answered back with a run of their own to get their lead back to three, as Vesnesky scored on a wild pitch.

Lance Fry would leave the game after four innings and 83 pitches, and when reliever Hunter Halsey walked the first batter he faced in the fifth, McCarthy (13-3-1, 3-0-1, #3 in Broward Power Ranking) must have thought things might be looking up. Instead, a strikeout and a 5-4-3 double play ended the threat.

Halsey would make things interesting again in the seventh when he allowed back-to-back two-out singles, but Jupiter would hold on for the win.

“Jupiter came out and did a good job, and we’ll learn from this,” Mavericks manager Rich Bielski said. “We need to learn to do the little things that get us a run here or there or prevent a run here or there. I see a lot of similarities with this club and the ones from the past few years. We need to find that consistency. We’ve been very fortunate (in the past) to find it by the end of the year and I look forward to us finding that again before the playoffs.”

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