BRISTOL, CONN. - After losing their first baseball game of the summer in Wednesday night's pool play finale against Portsmouth (N.H.), members of the Walpole American 12-year-old All-Star baseball team were dejected, but it didn't last long.
According to manager Brian Oberacker, that feeling lasted about 15 minutes.
They then realized, as Joey Guarino said, "A team may beat us, but we always say a team will not beat us twice."
Sure enough, the Americans turned around last night behind a strong performance on the mound from Sam Falkson to avenge that loss, 4-1, in the New England Region Little League Tournament semifinals to advance to tomorrow's final back at the A. Bartlett Giamatti Little League complex's Breen Field against Shelton National (Conn.)/Portland North (Maine) at 2 p.m. on a game that will be televised live on ESPN.
"It was hard to explain to the kids last night that we still need to win two to get to Williamsport, that that game didn't matter, it was just pool play," said Oberacker. "I said take it all in, it's okay to get sad about the loss, but let's get mad and let's get some revenge tomorrow. And it only took them about 15 minutes to calm down and they had great focus today and I just had a great feeling about today's game against the defending champs."
Falkson was superb, as he allowed an unearned run in the first, four hits, with six strikeouts and two walks, including one intentional free pass, in a full six innings of work.
"Sammy only threw six innings thus far (in Bristol). He was well rested. He took care of his arm and he came out here today and did his thing," said Oberacker. "He's our ace. He's the best ace in Massachusetts and today it was the best ace in Massachusetts against the best ace in New Hampshire and Sammy came out on top. He threw a complete game and that's a lot to ask of a 12-year-old kid and we're proud of him."
Offensively, the Americans scored all four runs with two outs and received excellent contributions from pinch hitters Brian Wolpe and Joey Guarino in a critical fourth inning rally.
"Tell you what, I've talked to a lot of coaches here and they've all agreed that we're the best hitting team here," said Oberacker. "One-through-13, it doesn't matter what kind of situation, we can come up and we'll put them out there and they'll somehow get the job done. I noticed in the cages today, Joey was swinging a great bat and so was Wolpe. It's not easy to come in that kind of situation, but two big hits and two big runs, I'm proud of those guys."
With Portsmouth ahead, 1-0, Walpole American put together a rally in the top of the third to tie the score, as Tim Sullivan hit a one-out base hit to left then stole second to get in scoring position. After a comebacker to pitcher Andrew Haslam for the second out, Johnny Adams shot a 1-0 pitch up the middle to score Sullivan.
The Americans took the lead for good in the fourth as Wolpe led the inning off with a double that rolled to the fence in right field. Falkson then bunted special pinch runner Mike LaVita to third but another comebacker led to the second out. But Guarino came up and delivered another single up the middle to plate LaVita and give his team a 2-1 advantage.
After a perfect bottom half where Falkson struck out two batters, Matt Bender drew a one-out walk and Adams followed with a single to put special pinch runner Mike Rando at second. Haslam struck out the last batter he faced before reliever Connor McCauley walked LaVita to load the bases.
Falkson then drilled a 2-2 pitch off the first base bag and into right field as Rando and Adams scored with a pair of insurance runs.
As it turned out, Falkson didn't even need them, as he induced three straight groundouts in the bottom half, one back to himself (he had four assists on the night), a spectacular backhand stop and throw from Adams at short and another nice play in the hole from Sullivan at second.
Then, in the sixth, he allowed a leadoff infield single before inducing two fly balls to right around a strikeout of Mackenzie Allen to end the ballgame, as his teammates made a pig pile on him at the mound when Johnny White caught the final out.
"It always takes me a while to find my groove," said Falkson. "Once I find my groove, I just do what the coaches tell me with the pitches. That usually works."
