Greenfield’s Conner Bergeron was a puzzle the Turners Falls baseball team couldn’t solve on Monday. 

The eighth grader pitched all five innings for the Green Wave, striking out 10 and scattering just one hit along the way. Greenfield put up four runs in the first inning and continued to pile on the runs from there, leading to an 11-1 five-inning independent victory at Vets Field. 

“Conner threw the ball well out there,” Green Wave coach Tom Suchanek said. “Ten strikeouts, one hit. That’s pretty good I’d say.” 

It was a slow start that hurt Turners (6-8) on Monday, as five of their first six batters went down via strikeouts. 

Couple that with a trio of errors in the first inning and the Thunder dug themselves too deep of a hole to climb out of. 

“They were ready to play and we weren’t,” Turners coach Scott Minckler said. “Their pitcher dominated us. He had us confused all day and the kids looked it. Most batters were getting down 0-2 and you can't win that way. Hats off to him. He did a great job and we were outmatched.”

Greenfield (9-6) got going early, as Chase Zraunig reached on an error to lead off the bottom of the first. 

Bergeron followed with a single, Caleb Thomas walked to load the bases and Logan Moore followed with a walk of his own to score Zraunig and put the Green Wave on the board. 

An error after Luca Siano put the ball in play brought Bergeron home and a throwing error to first trying to get Urijah Jenness allowed Thomas and Moore to score, giving Greenfield its early 4-0 lead. 

The Green Wave added two in the third. Thomas was hit by a pitch, Moore walked before Siano cracked a single to left field that brought Thomas in from second. Moore later scored on a wild pitch to make it a 6-0 game going into the fourth. 

Turners showed life in the fourth. Jackson Cogswell gave the Thunder their first baserunner of the game with a walk and Kainen Stevens followed by blasting a double down the left field line, with Cogswell using his speed to score from first and put Turners on the board. 

Greenfield responded in the bottom of the frame. Bergeron knocked his second single of the game, Thomas followed with a double and a Turners error scored Bergeron and Thomas to make it an 8-1 game. 

In the bottom of the fifth Sam Bucala knocked his first varsity hit, Zraunig reached on an error before Bergeron grounded out to bring in Bucala. Thomas followed with an RBI single and Moore closed out the win with a single that scored Thomas from second. 

Julian Kaiser pitched all five for the Thunder, striking out five. 

After a slow start to the season with the bats, the Green Wave have picked it up of late. It’s a similar story to the Greenfield teams of the last few years, which have gotten out to slow starts but began to play their best ball down the stretch and into the postseason. 

“We hit the ball today,” Suchanek said. “Can we hit it better? Yes we can. Last year we did the same thing at the end of the year. I don’t know why we wait so long but we do.” 

It’s a busy week for the Green Wave, which travel to Westhampton on Tuesday to take on Hampshire before hosting Pioneer on Wednesday then Wahconah on Friday.

“Hopefully this gives us a boost,”Sucahenk said. “We have a lot of games this week. We’ll see if we can keep it going.” 

Turners hosts Frontier on Tuesday before closing out its regular season state with Mahar on Wednesday in Orange. 

“[Tuesday] will be tough,” Minckler said. “[Frontier is] a Division 4 school and we’re Division 5 so they play some tough teams. It’ll help us in the state rankings. I’ve been preaching win the week. We know it’s going to be tough with Greenfield and Frontier but we just have to get back to it.”