Menard Helps Wild Salvage Split with St. Johnsbury

by Ken Brown

DANVILLE – Hazen Union’s Andrew Menard pitched his best game of the summer for the Green Mountain Wild U18 Babe Ruth team last week, to help them salvage a home and home split with St. Johnsbury as they improved to 3-2 on the season.

St. Johnsbury scored six runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to take the lead for good to edge the Wild 9-6 last Tuesday at Danville High School in local Babe Ruth action. Blue Mountain’s Cam Dennis, Cam Roy, and Ricky Fenimore combined for six hits for the Wild as they took a 4-2 lead into the bottom half of the fifth inning, but couldn’t hold it. Fenimore was the hard luck loser on the mound for the Wild, subbing in for Hazen Union’s Lyle Rooney, who was sidelined with an illness. Head coach and newly-named Hazen Union athletic director Jared Cushing was encouraged with his team’s play despite the outcome.

“Ricky pitched very well for us in tough conditions and the score wasn’t indicative of his performance for us tonight. Their pitcher did a nice job of mixing his pitches and kept us off balance in key situations. Lyle is going to be a big addition to our team and we hope to get him back healthy very soon,” said Cushing.

Menard twirled five innings of shutout baseball and earned the win as the Wild evened the home and home series with a 7-5 win on Thursday at St. Johnsbury Academy. Menard helped his own cause with a pair of hits and Fenimore blasted his second home run of the season to help the Wild take a commanding lead through five. Rex Houser hit a two run homer of his own to help St. Johnsbury mount a late comeback that fell just short.

“Andrew did a great job of throwing strikes and had nice command all night. The guys did a great job of making plays behind him and as a team we are starting to play really good baseball. When our roster gets fully healthy, this team has a really good chance of making a deep run and I’m excited to watch them come together throughout the season,” said Cushing.

The Wild hosted Mount Mansfield over the holiday weekend, will travel to Lyndon on Thursday, before wrapping up their week with a trip to Winooski on Saturday.