By Hannah Eastwood

The Westborough Rangers fell to 0-2 after suffering a 4-1 loss in their home opener to long time rival Algonquin on Wednesday.

Kyle Clarkson, sophomore, pitched 5 innings for Westborough, in which he gave up three runs on nine hits.

“For his first varsity start, I thought Kyle [Clarkson] did a fabulous job,” says Coach Kittredge.  “He kept us in the game, he threw strikes, he kept the ball down.  His defense didn’t really support him early in the game.  The first three innings were a little sloppy.  Each of those runs I thought probably could have been prevented, but Kyle did a good job working around it and minimizing.  [Algonquin] didn’t get any multiple run innings, we kept them to single runs, which was what gave us a chance and then just offensively we didn’t do enough to reel them in.”

Senior captain Brendan Shunney came in to pitch in the sixth inning, after starting the game at third base.  In his first inning on the mound, Shunney recorded back-to-back strikeouts in a 1-2-3 inning.

“That’s exactly what we need from our relief guys,” remarks Kittredge.  “He threw strikes right away.  [It] gives you the opportunity to get back in the game offensively.  We just didn’t quite hit the ball enough for him.

Sophomore Johnny Kelley scored the only run of the game for Westborough.  The sophomore was also impressive on defense.  Specifically in the fifth inning when Kelley, while playing shortstop, dove to keep the ball in the infield and stop the runner at third.

“Kelley has been really good on defense for us.  He had that ball in the dirt on the relay in the first, which was tough, but overall his defense has been sharp.  That’s what you need up the middle.  Shortstops a key defensive position and he did a nice job,” remarks Kittredge.

Algonquin’s Connor Henderson recorded six strikeouts in an impressive outing.  Despite a strong pitching effort by Westborough, Algonquin ultimately overpowered the Rangers on offense with four runs on ten hits.  Although, Westborough’s four errors didn’t help either.

“We gotta clean up the defense.  Obviously in those first couple innings we gave up some extra bases,” says Kittredge.

The win continues the Tomahawks’ undefeated season and improves them to 4-0.  Despite the Rangers’ slow start to the season Coach Kittredge remains hopeful toward the team’s chances this year.

“We’re coming off a two win season.  We had a real tough year last year,” remarks Kittredge.  “We had two reasonably close games.  We were in both of them.”

As the Ranger’s get set to take on Leominster, the defending state champions, on Friday April 17, they continue to look for their first win of the 2015 season.