This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Methuen East Blasts Past Swampscott's 11-Year-Olds

The District 14 Little League Baseball champs showed no mercy at Benevento Field Wednesday night, cranking out 17 hits on the way to a 15-3 pasting of the Swampscott All-Stars.

With the field ringed with North Reading ballplayers and parents checking out the opposition, Methuen East continued to blast their way to wins in post-season play, pounding the Swampscott 11-year-old All-Stars 15-3, Wednesday night in North Reading.

Swampscott drops to 0-1 in the three-team tournament, and will play the loser of the game Thursday night between Methuen East and North Reading Friday night at 5:45 p.m. at Michael J. Benevento Memorial Field in North Reading.

Swampscott had eight days off before Wednesday night’s game against the District 14 champs Methuen East, but manager Dan Santanello made no excuses after the loss.

“That team played better than us, plain and simple,” Santanello said after the game, Swampscott’s first loss in the post-season. “We made a lot of mistakes that we usually don’t make, bad base running, overthrows, not hitting the cut-off man, it wasn’t a strong game from us.”

Methuen East took the District 14 title, outscoring their opponents by over 40 runs to get to the next playoff round against District 13 winner North Reading and the District 16 champs from Swampscott.

“We can adapt to any team we play,” Methuen East manager Peter Gangi said. “If their pitcher’s fast we’ll swing hard, if they pitch off-speed, we’ll be patient at the plate, this is a disciplined team and they showed that discipline again tonight.”

Methuen East jumped out 2-0 before the Swampscott fans had settled in their lawn chairs, knocking out starter Colin Frary with two on and two out in the top of the first. Luke Marshall came on to retire Andrius Kulbis-Marino and Matt Gangi, but Swampscott was behind by two after a half inning.

Methuen East cranked it up in the top of the second, scoring another three runs to go up by five after their second turn at bat.

Swampscott had some life in the bottom of the second, Frary doubled and came home on a Steven Santanello single, but Methuen East was primed to pour it on.

It was 6-1 after three and 9-1 after four. 

Methuen East banged out a lot of hits Wednesday night, but Swampscott (3-1) did not have their best game in the field.

“We threw the ball around and did a lot of things we normally don’t do,” Santanello said. “The kids were hanging their heads a bit when they got behind, and that’s unusual for this group, we’ll be back on the practice field tomorrow (Thursday) and try to straighten some things out.”

“That’s a good team over there, but we’ve got to play better, we’ve got to work hard on the things that got us here,” Santanello said.

Methuen East scored in every inning but the fifth, pushing across six runs in the top of the sixth, three coming on a blast over the center-field fence by Owen Foote.

Swampscott did manage to scrape up two runs in the bottom of the sixth; Cam Thompson came home on a double by Luke Marshall with two outs. Marshall came home on a single by Sean Lahrizi to make it 15-3, but Lahrizi was out going for two and the game was over.

Jacob Thibault got the win; Colin Frary took the loss for Swampscott, their first of the post season, after a win over Wyoma and two wins over Saugus American.

Methuen East takes on North Reading at 5:45 p.m. Thursday night, the loser taking on Swampscott Friday night in the double elimination round.

“The key in districts is to get a big lead early, work in your subs and save your pitchers, and that’s what worked for us tonight,” Gangi said after the win.  “We might see them again and we’ll be ready if we do.”

Brett Benoit, Luke Marshall and Liam Faulkner each had two hits for Swampscott, Maxx Cooper, Steven Santanello and Colin Frary each chipped in with a hit on the loss.

Swampscott awaits the loser of the North Reading-Mehtuen East game, the loser going home, Friday night at 5:45 p.m. in North Reading.

Find out what's happening in Swampscottwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?