An especially slow start to its season in which it lost nine of its first 10 games didn’t cause the Greenwich High School baseball team to let down or give up on the season.

Instead, the Cardinals have rallied and are now playing their best baseball of the spring.

Greenwich followed victories against New Canaan, Darien and Ridgefield, with an 11-0 five-inning win against Bridgeport Central on Friday, extending its winning streak to four games.

The Cardinals are now 5-9 overall and have pushed their FCIAC record up to 5-5. Their .500 mark in the FCIAC have them in the hunt to earn the No. 8 seed in the rapidly approaching conference tournament.

“It’s a testament to the boys,” Greenwich coach Adrian Arango said of the Cardinals’ turnaround. “They never gave up. At 1-9, they could have easily been like, this is a lost season. I credit the seniors first and foremost, our captains and the seniors.”

“Even our young guys and the guys that aren’t getting in and are not getting as much playing time as they want – everyone has bought in. Our intensity level at practice and games is higher in the last couple of weeks,” Arango continued.

Even though Bridgeport Central is winless on the season, it is a much-improved team. The Hilltoppers lost a 4-3 game to Trumbull and gave New Canaan a tough game in a 7-4 loss.

In Friday’s FCIAC matchup against Bridgeport Central, the Cardinals started junior right-hander Troy Goodwin on the mound.

“We didn’t take any chances, we started Troy, he’s been one of our guys this year,” Arango noted. “We wanted Troy to get some work today to get him ready for Monday. I was proud with the way we came out. They are much-improved team.”

Goodwin struck out three batters and did not yield a hit or a run in three innings of work. He is scheduled to start Monday’s home game against Danbury.

“Troy was fantastic,” Goodwin said. “With him, we said 40 pitches no matter what. He gave us 40 pitches through three innings and was great.”

After a scoreless first inning, Greenwich scored three runs in the second inning, added two runs in the third inning, then ended the matchup with a six-run bottom of the fifth inning.

The Cards finished the game with 10 hits.

“The swings were good, we talked about maybe having to change our approach,” Arango said. “I was very impressed with their pitcher. He had a really good curveball. It took until that last fifth inning to get the bats going. This is a team that lost by one run to Trumbull and three runs to New Canaan.”

Senior second baseman/captain Nathan Jones went 2 for 4 with two RBIs and two runs scored, senior left fielder Andrew Walko had two hits, one RBI and one run scored, junior catcher Cody Baker had one hit, one run scored and two RBIs and senior third baseman Teddy Flinn added one hit, a run scored an RBI to help pace Greenwich.

Senior center fielder Miles Trager drove in a run with a ground ball fielder’s choice, giving Greenwich a 1-0 lead on Central in the bottom of the first inning against right-hander Gabriel Mejias. Flinn gave GHS a 2-0 advantage when he hit a sacrifice fly in the inning. Owen Lanzarone, a senior, who started in right field, drove in Greenwich’s third run of the inning with a bunt single.

Mike Bocchino, a senior captain, was 1 for 1 with two walks and two runs scored, junior first baseman John McHugh had one hit and one run scored, senior Alex Palmer had an RBI and junior infielder Gavyn Gennarelli had a hit and an RBI for the victors.

Central scored its run in the top of the fourth inning against Cardinals reliever Mike Marek, who made his first varsity appearance. Jaiven Rivera delivered a run-scoring single, cutting the Cards’ lead to 5-1. Marek escaped further trouble by inducing a ground ball double play with the bases loaded, keeping the score at 5-1. Marek proceeded to pitch a scoreless fifth inning.

“That was his first action on varsity,” Arango noted. “He had a great second inning and we’re proud of him.”

In the fifth inning, Gennarelli hit a sacrifice fly and a second run scored on the play due to a throwing error, making it 7-1. Palmer drove in a run with a ground ball and Jones drove in a pair of runs with triple, extending Greenwich’s edge to 10-1.

Walko ended the game, due to the 10-run rule, by hitting an RBI single.

Marek struck out two batters in two innings of work. The Cardinals’ home game versus Danbury is scheduled to begin Monday at 4:30 p.m. Danbury is 9-6 overall and has an FCIAC mark of 8-2.

“I’m super proud of the boys, we’ve made tremendous strides,” said Jones, who doubled and tripled in Friday’s win. “Our brutal loss against Fairfield Ludlowe on our away game (a 2-1 walk-off loss) I feel, turned our season around. Tyler (Senft) pitched a great game that day and we used that as fuel going forward. We realized that every game in the FCIAC is going to be super tight to the end.”

After playing Danbury, the Cardinals will visit Westhill Wednesday, then host Wilton Saturday on Senior Day.

“We just need to compete all 21 outs and play to the max of our capabilities and we’ve been doing a better job of that,” Jones said. We want to keep the momentum going for the rest of the season. Today was a big statement game offensively, it was great to get the sticks hot and build the momentum.”

Arango pointed to his squad’s win against New Canaan as one of the turning points to the season.

“Last Friday, something clicked at New Canaan. We showed up to play against a really good team. These are competitive kids and at some point, moral victories don’t count anymore. We’ve been on the other side of that, we have had two one-run wins this week, two last week. I like where we are right now. I think anybody we play right now is going to have to put an A-plus effort to hang with us.”