Bishop Guertin's Cooper Hand is focused as he delivers a pitch during Friday night's all-city clash with rival Nashua North at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – One in the Hand is worth one in the standings – on the far left column.

That was the case for the Bishop Guertin High School baseball team Friday night when sophomore Cooper Hand delivered a gem on the mound in the Cards’ 6-0 win over Nashua North at chilly Holman Stadium.

Hand checked the struggling Titans on two hits, striking out seven over six innings of work. Featuring a tantalizing curve, he pitched like a senior, not walking anyone while plunking one Titan.

“Hats off to their pitcher,” said North coach Zach Harris, his 1-4 team fighting through a four game losing streak. “I thought he did a great job all night, he kept us off-balance, he did a good job attacking with fastballs early, and the second time through seeing guys attack with off-speed early. … We’ve got to do a better job of making adjustments and being a little more aggressive early in counts.”

North clearly was having, as the saying goes, trouble with the curve.

“Yeah, it was really working today,” Hand, who transferred to BG from Bishop Brady after his family moved down from Concord. “Usually sometimes I’ll be missing (with) it, but it was on today, and just getting swings and misses. It was a little slow to start, but second inning it really got going.”

Guertin has had some great pitching performances early on this season, and Hand’s effort in his first Cardinal start belongs right with them.

“We’re preaching consistency,” Cards coach Scott Painter said. “Try to get back on the mound, repeat deliveries, work quick, and obviously Cooper today worked real quick, was efficient.”

Painter said that Hand could have gone out for the seventh but at 75 pitches a six-run lead and lots of baseball left, no reason to push it. Cole Lancaster pitched a scoreless seventh.

Now 2-3, Guertin’s bats made things comfortable, led by Liam Ireland’s three RBIs.. After getting an unearned run in the first (Gavin Santos RBI single), the Cards strung four singles together vs. North starter Brayden Ouellet in the bottom of the second to plate three runs. RBIs went to Cole Lancaster, and two for Ireland.

That made it a 4-0 game, and BG added two more on an Ireland double that was bobbled in right by North’s Andrew Butler.

As for the Titans, they had two runners on just once – in the fourth as Nolan Sullivan singled and Owen Forcier got plunked by a rare Hand breaker that didn’t break. But he fanned Butler to end the threat.

“He threw really well in the preseason and really well in workout stuff,” Painter said of Hand. “That’s what we expect, in the preseason every

scrimmage he pitched in he was spot on.”

Bishop Guertin’s Gavin Santos reaches down to tag out Nashua North’s Ben Kelly at second during Friday night’s all-city clash at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

The other thing that Painter felt the Cards did well was hit the ball to the opposite field.

“We’ve been trying like every other high school team in the state to get our guys to hit the ball the other way,” he said. “That’s what we did all day today.”

North, meanwhile, had a hole that was too dig to deep out of in the game. They just don’t want it to be too deep for the season.

“We’ve got to keep growing,” Harris said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys playing, a lot of inexperienced guys and that comes with it. So we’re going to move on and continue to get better every day. I told the guys no time to feel sorry for ourselves, we’re back here in the stadium for 1 o’clock tomorrow.”

That’s because today is the annual Day of Baseball quadrupleheader at Holman. It starts with Pinkerton vs. Nashua South at 10 a.m., followed by the Titans vs. Salem at 1 p.m., Souhegan vs.Concord at 4 and the Cards vs. Dover at 7.