By STEVE MAZZONE

Sports writer

NORTH SMITHFIELD – North Smithfield High coach Marc Talbot doesn’t consider his team as strong offensively as most other squads in Division II. Instead, he feels his Northmen have generated most of their wins through their pitching and defense.
As usual, the defense and pitching was on display once again for No. 5 seed North Smithfield in its Division II, Region I opener with 12th-seeded Tolman High Thursday afternoon.
But the Northmen (12-6 in II-North) got a little added surprise. The hitting was there, too.
Senior Brian Van Pelt allowed just two hits with eight strikeouts and the offense exploded for 10 hits, fueling a pair of productive frames, as North Smithfield routed Tolman, 10-0, in a contest called after five innings due to the mercy rule.
“I thought we did very well in all three phases of the game,” Talbot said. “It was a nice, neat win. When I say neat, I mean clean and efficient. Everything went very, very well for us.”
Locked in a scoreless tie with the Tigers (10-8 in II-East), North Smithfield broke the game open in the bottom of the third inning with four runs that came courtesy of five straight hits off starter Eric Johnston. The Northmen added to the Johnston and the Tigers’ misery with six runs in the fifth inning to finalize the contest.
“We are not offensively deep as most teams. We win with good pitching and defense,” Talbot said. “Today it was nice to see us put together a string of solid at-bats, intelligent at-bats and demanding good strikes to swing at, and the results were there for us.”
The results were also there for Van Pelt, the Northmen’s No. 2 pitcher in the rotation. After a shaky first inning, the right-hander progressively got stronger as the game moved on. Relying mostly on his curveball, Van Pelt retired the final eight batters in the Tigers’ lineup to earn his shutout.
“It was a little chilly out,” Van Pelt said. “Once I warmed up, I started playing better. My curveball was really working today.”
“He got stronger as the game went on,” Tolman coach Theo Murray said. “We had our opportunities in the first inning, but I think as the innings went on he was throwing harder. He was struggling early with his location, but in the fourth and fifth inning he was throwing harder with his fastball and his curveball was nasty.”
Talbot elected to go with Van Pelt instead of ace pitcher Nick Naradowy with his reasoning being that if he could steal a win over the Tigers, Naradowy would take the mound in the next game – a winners’ bracket tilt against higher-seed Exeter/West Greenwich (No.5) this Saturday.
“Brian is certainly a nice number two to have,” Talbot said. “I think he’s pretty darn good, so that made the decision a lot easier. My thought process was you have to have two pitchers at least this week. With Exeter/West Greenwich waiting in the wings for the winner of this game well-rested, I thought that Brian Van Pelt is more than good enough to start a playoff series for us and now I have Nick for Saturday. I rolled the dice and it worked. If it didn’t work, I would be hanging from a tree somewhere.”
Tolman collected all two of its hits in the top of the first with back-to-back singles by leadoff Derek Ethier and No. 2 batter John Gagnon. Van Pelt managed to work his way out of the early jam when Gagnon was tagged out on a steal attempt and then getting Brandon Brown to line out to first and striking out Johnston for the final out.
North Smithfield threatened in the bottom of the second when Ben Shatraw led off the inning with a double and advanced to third on a pop-out to centerfield by teammate Kevin Murphy. But Johnston left the mound unscathed by forcing Patrick O’Brien to ground out and then fanning designated hitter Peter Mancini.
Johnston wasn’t quite as lucky in the third. North Smithfield strung together five straight hits to begin the inning with Nick Adriano setting the tone by beating out an infield single. Kevin Okruta followed with a double and Eric D’Agostino, Van Pelt and Naradowy each had base hits. D’Agostino and Van Pelt drove in a run with their hits.
The Northmen would score their remaining two runs in the inning off an error and a groundout RBI by Shatraw.
Okruta (single) and Mancini (double) would each have run-scoring hits to highlight the six-run fifth.
With the setback, Tolman faces the loser of the Ponaganset-Mount Hope playoff game, also on Saturday.
“We have been playing well, but unfortunately the things that have been hurting us, hurt us today,” Murray said.
***
Tolman 000 00 – 0 2 3
North Smithfield 004 06 – 10 10 0
Eric Johnston, Justin Tilly (5) and Troy Sawyer. Brian Van Pelt and Kevin Okruta. 2B – NS, Ben Shatraw, Kevin Okruta 2, Aaron Catarina.