BRISTOL — The Bristol Central Rams baseball team is starting to find their groove five games into the season as the Rams have reeled off two impressive wins against Farmington and Hall over the last few days.
The Rams defeated Farmington 16-2 on Tuesday and then shut out Hall 10-0 on Wednesday to improve to 4-2.
Bristol Central coach Bunty Ray said the team’s performance against Hall was the best they’ve played all season and if they can stay at the level they’ll be a hard team to beat this season.
“I thought that was the best we played all year,” Ray said. “This season has been up and down for us in terms of getting some consistency. That was our third game in three days. We played a war on Monday and didn’t come out on the good side of it, but the last couple of games I think these guys have really stepped up.”
Ray added the bats are clicking and they are getting great contributions from the pitching staff.
“Great pitching performance by Aiden [Lopez], if that’s what he’s capable of we’re going to be very tough if he can keep throwing like that,” Ray said. “Just all in all. It was a good game for us.”
The consistency struggles for Bristol Central has come from more than just the game itself. With the bad weather the team has been unable to practice as much as they would like to and they were also dealing with some early season injuries that forced some young players to take the lead.
Those opportunities have benefited the Rams in some cases as Ray specifically acknowledges junior Caleb Simard’s performance at third base and sophomore Jackson Ray. He said they’ll need their regular guys, but it’s nice to build the depth of the team.
“That’s been an issue for us. We haven’t been consistent in our practice. Games have been backed up,” Ray said. “Once we get some momentum I think we'll be pretty good. We have some guys with ability on this team. I think we’ve been pressing a little bit in the beginning of the year. We’re 4-2. We lost a couple games that we were in that we should’ve won. This team is very competitive so we just have to keep getting better.”
Ray added what’s impressed him the most about the season so far is that it hasn’t been easy.
“We saw a lot of adversity and now we’re starting to play better, which shows our maturity,” Ray said. “When you have a veteran team that’s what you want to see. Things weren’t really going our way in the beginning and now you can kind of see where we can go. So we just have to stay consistent. That's the biggest thing.”
The Rams return back to the diamond at Avon at 3:45 p.m.
