Braeden Mott Twirls No-Hitter in Series-Clinching Victory Over Southold

Braeden Mott is only a few weeks into his first varsity baseball season, but he’s already got his first no-hitter.

The Pierson sophomore shut down rival and host Southold on Saturday, leading to the Whalers’ 3-0 victory and three-game series sweep of the Settlers. Mott allowed two walks, hit one batter and struck out 11 in his seven innings of work. He did it all on 94 pitches, 11 under the 105 pitch limit.

“Braeden was locked in right away,” Pierson head coach Jonathan Schwartz said. “He pounded the strike zone with fastballs early, he was working ahead, had all of his pitches working for him. Right away, I knew at that point, if we could get some runs across, we’d have a good shot.”

Facing Southold’s top pitcher, and one of the best pitchers in League X, Luke Newman, it was actually a ground ball put into play off of Mott’s bat that led to the first two runs of the game in the top of the fourth inning. Southold’s third baseman made an error with runners on second and third and two outs, which allowed those runners to score. Pierson’s third run of the game was also unearned.

Schwartz said the sixth inning was a big one for Mott because he got out of it facing the ninth batter in Southold’s lineup and then the top of the lineup before getting to the middle of the lineup in the seventh. In that inning, Mott induced ground ball outs to third and first before striking out the final batter to end the game and clinch his first-ever varsity no-hitter.

Mott said he’s probably thrown no-hitters at both the Little League and middle school levels, but he’s proud of his latest being that it was at the varsity level. Historically, Mott joins rare company. Reportedly, James Sherry and Aidan Crowley combined for a no-hitter in the first game of a series against Greenport in 2016, which was followed by a no-hitter the following day by Ryan Chisholm. Of course there was also Coleman Vila’s gem in 2013, when he no-hit Friends Academy to lead the Whalers to the Long Island Class C Championship that June.

“I was a little nervous, but once I started getting into a groove and feeling my pitches, I was fine,” Mott said. “My offspeed stuff was really on and then I could paint high with my fastball. Everything was just really working for me.

“Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking about [the no-hitter] at all. Nobody said anything about that,” he added. “I knew that I had one going into the last inning. I just wanted to keep the ball low in the zone and make them hit a ground ball to get the outs.

“I was pretty happy. It was a good accomplishment.”

Although the scores (10-0, 10-3) would indicate otherwise, Schwartz said Southold gave his team a tough series and that his team didn’t extend leads in both games until late. Pierson, staked to a 6-0 start in League X play, sits atop the league along with Port Jefferson. The Whalers will play Amityville in a three-game series this week, which began on Wednesday, and will conclude with a doubleheader this Saturday, April 29, at Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor with game two expected to start at 10 a.m. and game three afterward.