Norwood Post 70 manager Paul Samargedlis said after a Game 1 defeat to Quincy Post 95 in their best-of-three District 6 playoff series that if his team cared about the town’s baseball tradition that it would find a way to send the series back to Norwood. In fact, he guaranteed it.
Last night in Game 2 at Adams Field the Post 70 bats came out on a mission to back up that claim, pounding out six runs in the first inning to power a 10-6 win that sets up a deciding Game 3 tonight at Peter Wall Field (8 p.m.)
“I asked these kids to do something tonight and they responded, and that’s step one,” said Samargedlis. “I had 100 percent confidence in them getting it done and that why its a series.”
The inability to deliver with runners on that plagued Post 70 Monday night was nowhere to be found in the first inning. Tony Verrochi and Sean Keady led the game off with back-to-back singles off Quincy starter Jared Kenney as the Norwood tablesetters collected half of Post 70s 12 hits on the day with three each.
With one out, Brian Williams and Cory Sennott plated them with consecutive hard-hit singles to center. A steal put two runners in scoring position for Pat Eckhardt, who grounded a ball to short that easily scored Williams. Norwood got a bonus, however, when the throw sailed high to bring around Sennott as well for a 4-0 edge.
Jesse Shaughnessy followed with a RBI double down the left field line, moved to third on a Joe Trahon single and scored on a Kyle McCabe groundout, and it was 6-0 before the hosts had seen a pitch.
“That (Quincy) team can flat-out rake but you know what, I said that our offense hadn’t shown up yet, that six-spot in the first inning was nice and that set the tone. But they didn’t give up, they were couple of hits from getting it tied up.”
Quincy answered with two of its own off Norwood starter Chris Foley on URI-bound Mike LeBel’s booming RBI triple to dead center and Mike Jay’s slow-rolling infield hit to short. But after a couple walks loaded the bases the Post 70 right-hander limited the damage by getting a one-hopper to second.
Foley allowed an unearned run to make it 6-3 in the second but settled down nicely, not allowing a hit through scoreless third, fourth and fifth innings, the final one key to make the game official as a light rain began to worsen.
“He got into a rhythm in the middle innings and got a couple zeroes and that was big,” said Samargedlis of Foley, who struck out three and walked five in picking up his fourth win of the summer.
Along the way, his offense had increased his cushion. Norwood wasted a leadoff double in the second and had a runner thrown out at the plate tagging up in the third but tacked on two more in the fourth without the benefit of a hit.
An error and a pair of walks loaded the bases and Quincy couldn’t scoop an errant throw at first that would have ended the inning to hand Norwood two more runs for make it 8-3. Quincy committed five errors on the night, four of them on wild throws to first.
“You have to make the plays, you can’t make errors. We know what we did wrong,” said Quincy assistant coach Sean Sullivan. “We still have little bit of momentum just for the fact that we crawled back in that game. They hit the ball but other that one bad inning it was an even game. We just have to play clean baseball.”
Verrochi and Keady put a pair of two-out doubles together and another Quincy miscue plated two more in the fifth for a 10-3 edge. Post 95 had one last gasp left, however.
A pair of single put a pair on and a grounder the right side moved two into scoring position for Quincy with two out. LeBel hit a grounder up the middle that Williams smothered but could not come up with cleanly. With the lead runner already in with one run, Mike Leone made it two, never breaking stride around third and beating the throw home. Tom Conley then followed with an RBI single that closed the gap to 10-6.
That ended Foley’s night in favor of Joe Santisi and he was flawless in closing it out. The southpaw got a strikeout to end the sixth then got three quick groundball outs in a three-up, three-down seventh to avoid any late drama. It wasn’t all good news postgame, however, as third baseman Alex LiDonni did exit with a foot injury in the sixth.
Quincy is likely to send the rifle-armed Lebel to the mound in Game 3 while Norwood was still weighing its options. The winner earns a South sectional date with either Hanover or Westport, depending on who advances from today’s Foxboro-Milton Game 3.
“We’ve got a rested bullpen and we are going to piece that bullpen into starter,” said Samargedlis. “Believe it or not I think whoever plays the best defense is going to win (Game3), both teams can hit. They said that they took us by surprise in the first game but we knew they weren’t a 10-8 team. It’s going to be a good one.”
