The Warren Woods Tower Titans shook off 11 walks from their pitching staff to secure a nail-biting 11-8 victory over the New Haven Rockets, 11-8, in a Macomb Area Conference crossover baseball game on Friday, April 11.

Things might have been more straight-forward for the Titans had they been able to leave their starter, Derek Atkins, on the mound — the long-limbed righty allowed two hits and an earned run in two innings, but he walked nobody and got all his outs via strikeout.

But after a 30 pitch inning got his pitch count to 51, Woods Tower skipper Jose Jimenez had to make a decision.

“He’s probably our number one pitcher right now,” Jimenez said. “He threw 30 pitches, I think, that one inning so I was trying to keep him under 50 so he could pitch again next week, Monday, Tuesday. So that was the problem. Otherwise, if we didn’t have the tight schedule, he probably would have gone a little further.”

Fortunately, he was still in their lineup — Atkins went 3-for-4 with three hits, four RBIs and two runs scored plus two stolen bases, playing the latter five innings at shortstop.

Two of those RBIs were in the fourth inning, during which Warren Woods Tower hung seven runs on New Haven starter Eddie Knuckey, who walked four batters and allowed eight earned runs in three innings, to go ahead 10-3.

“Walks will always kill you,” said New Haven head coach Nick Puzzonia. “Walks definitely hurt. Hit by pitches will hurt. Didn’t have too many of those, but just the walks or free bases, simple mistakes, back handing a ball when you should, basics, elementary, gator it. Just simple stuff — simple stuff that kills you.”

Cameron Patterson, Shane Duvall and Foley Kedzior threw the last five innings, with Patterson and Duvall walking all 11 batters between them. With a doubleheader against Lutheran Northwest looming the next day, Jimenez was forced to get creative — Duvall and Patterson both played four different positions on Friday and three others moved around once.

“I had guys all over the place going from third to short to third, pitcher, you know, catcher — you saw I had to switch a catcher here in the last innings,” Jimenez said. “But you do what you got to do, because I want to stick to the game plan for tomorrow. Have my guys ready for tomorrow.”

The Rockets didn’t back down. They scored in each of the final four innings and even had the tying run on first base in the top of the seventh — but timely hitting, or lack thereof, buried them. New Haven left two runners on in the second inning, three in the fourth, three in the sixth and three in the seventh.

“You just got to capitalize in the moment,” Puzzonia said. “You look at the scoreboard, you only lost by three. You don’t have to get all of them. You just got to get some of them. And then the few times that there’s a guy on first and second, a guy at third, whatever it is, you leave him on base. I mean, that’s just leaving money on the table.”

New Haven drew eight of their walks off of Tower’s Cameron Patterson, who allowed five runs (four earned) on two hits plus the eight free passes in 3.1 innings of work.

Of Woods Tower’s 12 hits, 10 were singles. They stole nine bases and laid down several bunts, including a few that resulted in hits.

It’s part of what Jimenez and the Titans have been training for all offseason.

“We’ve been working all winter on bunting, stealing,” Jimenez said. “Sometimes when you can’t hit, you got to manufacture runs. And we got lucky that they actually did it the right way. (We) came through and against a good team, which is a bright spot.”

The Titans went just 9-20 last year and are off to a 2-1 start in 2025. They’ll compete in the MAC Gold.

Catcher Foley Kedzior went 2-for-2 with two walks, two runs and two RBIs in the leadoff spot. He was called upon to finish off the game after Shane Duvall struggled to put the Rockets away in the seventh, getting all three outs stranding the bases loaded with back-to-back strikeouts looking.

Landon Chamberlain and Billy Godard also had two hits, and Chamberlain drove in three runs. One of their top players, Trevor Salmons, didn’t play with a back injury.

New Haven (0-2), a MAC Silver member, is coming off their first-ever 20 win season, but after graduating seven seniors (six of which started), Puzzonia knows that repeating that feat will be a challenge. But the Rockets still expect to play high-quality ball.

“I don’t expect 20 wins, but I expect us to be above .500 and showing up every single day and doing the right stuff,” Puzzonia said. “I preach to them that you don’t have to do anything fancy. You just got to do the routine things every single time, and eventually those add up, and those lead to wins.”

Riley Martin and Deven Nagorsen step into starting roles after sitting behind established players for two seasons, and their entire starting outfield, so far, is newcomers.

Lamar Pearson is one of their top offensive weapons, going 2-for-2 with three RBIs and two walks. Kaden Gilbert and Will Bosco also walked twice.