Navigators Post Tuesday 1-0 Win Over Westfield (Post Game Video) – Navs Host Nashua Tonight at 6 p.m.

By Joshua Kummins

LYNN — The North Shore Navigators scored in the first inning and never looked back on Tuesday night, edging past the Westfield Starfires for a 1-0 win in Futures Collegiate Baseball League action at Fraser Field.

North Shore snapped its three-game losing streak and jumped past Westfield by a half-game in the league standings with a 9-10 record, while Westfield slipped to 9-11.

Center fielder Sal Frelick (Boston College) led off his first game since July 12 with a single and scored the lone run of the game later in the first inning on designated hitter Cam Climo’s (UMass Lowell) sacrifice fly. Right fielder Ben Malgeri (Northeastern) was responsible for two more of North Shore’s five total hits, while first baseman Logan Bravo (Harvard) singled in the sixth inning to extend his hitting streak to 10 games.

Navs lefty Cam Seguin (UMass Lowell) was in control on the mound and posted his first win of the season. The Austin Prep product struck out seven over six innings of two-hit, scoreless ball. Peter Sakellaris (Virginia Tech), Jack Wallace (Franklin Pierce) and Max Meier (Stanford) followed Seguin with scoreless frames to preserve the Navs’ first shutout since July 4, 2019 at Pittsfield.

Following Seguin’s 1-2-3 start, the Navs scratched across the only run they needed in the bottom half of the first. Frelick and Malgeri led off with back-to-back singles before a double steal moved them both into scoring position. After Westfield starter Nick Dombkowski (Hartford) struck out Bravo for the first out, Climo’s fly ball to center drove in Frelick with the only run.

Seguin retired the side in order three times over the first five innings before second baseman Dolan Ocasal (UAlbany) led off the sixth with Westfield’s first hit of the game. He finished both the fourth and fifth frames with two strikeouts.

Westfield had great chances to tie the score during the back half of the game.

In the sixth, the Starfires put together a pair of hits before shortstop Alex Haba (Merrimack) started a 6-4-3 double play in his Navs debut to help the team escape a two-on jam. 

Designated hitter Devin Kellogg’s (Hartford) fly ball to right turned into an inning-ending double play in the following frame as Malgeri gunned down and catcher Dylan January (Franklin Pierce) tagged out third baseman Ramon Jimenez (Boston College) at the plate.

Ocasal and left fielder Mark Coley (Rhode Island) posted back-to-back singles with one out in the eighth, but Wallace induced a grounder and a strikeout to end the threat and keep the shutout intact.

Bravo and January led off North Shore’s sixth and seventh innings with singles. The Navs stranded the bases loaded in the third and seventh and left two runners aboard in the sixth, but one run was all that they needed in the end as Meier came into the game to pitch a 1-2-3 ninth inning with a strikeout to post a save.

Dombkowski suffered a hard-luck loss for Westfield, allowing a run on four hits and three walks while striking out six over the first six innings. Ocasal recorded two of the Starfires’ four hits at the plate.

The Navs continue their six-game homestand when the Nashua Silver Knights pay another visit to Fraser on Wednesday at 6 p.m.