In the first game of the day, the Crusaders beat up on RMM Gonzaga Vikings 15-4, with John Cribb and Dean Hammond leading the assault with three hits apiece. Matt Smith, Dan Rice, Steve Kelly and Kevin Cashin all had two hits. Rice knocked in four runs.
Justin Crawley got the win, with relief help from Cashin. David Lahey, the first of three Gonzaga pitchers, suffered the loss.
A pair of Vikings veterans, Gerald Butt and Ken O’Brien, homered in a losing cause.
Murphy flirted with a no-hitter for most of the game in the second contest — it would have been the second thrown at St. Pat’s in less than a week, the first tossed by Dan Connors — but Zach Cullimore broke up the bid with a leadoff single in the seventh.
Murphy finished with a one-hitter and 10 strikeouts as Shamrocks shut out the Knights 6-0. He issued three walks. Matt Sullivan, who went the distance, took the loss.
Trevor Clarke had two hits for the winners.
Friday night, Holy Cross beat the Fifth Ticket Feildians 5-3. Aaron Flood was three-for-three in a losing cause.
The Murphy outing wasn’t the only significant pitching performance on the weekend, as the St. John’s Molson Intermediate Baseball League opened its 2017 season Saturday with three games.
At St. Pat’s, Riley King scattered two hits and struck out an incredible 20 of 21 hitters as Feildians beat Gonzaga 7-2.
King is a 21-year-old from Gander who was making his intermediate debut.
In another game at St. Pat’s, Shamrocks outlasted Holy Cross 11-10.
At the Smallwood Drive Ball Park, Knights got by Storm 7-6 in a clash of Mount Pearl-based teams.
Nick Fowler and Nick French both had two hits for the Knights, who got the win from Matt Clarke in relief of Randy Reid.
