Coming off a loss on Wednesday that left the Westwood American Legion Post 320 baseball team a game over .500 and just two points in front of a pair of teams for fourth place, last night’s contest against Franklin Post 75, one of the two teams tied for the fifth and final playoff spot, meant more than just the two points.
Westwood got a big offensive night from C.J. Parsons in the middle of the lineup and Connor Doonan at the end of it and prevailed 4-3.
The win improves Westwood to 6-4, keeping them in fourth place, a point behind Medfield and two in front of Foxboro, while Franklin dips to 4-6.
“A loss to them would’ve made us even and tied and left us back in the pack somewhere,” said Post 320 manager Dick Paster. “We separate ourselves from these guys a little bit and keep ourselves maybe in the top echelon a little bit.”
Parsons opened the fourth hitting a missile to left, breaking a 1-1 tie and giving Westwood the lead for good. Doonan added a second run in the inning with a two-out double to left-center that scored Greg Homer from first.
Doonan gave Westwood a 4-2 lead in the sixth with a ground ball single through the right side with the bases loaded, scoring Parsons, who had started the inning with a single in a good at-bat fouling off a handful of pitches before sending a shot back through the middle.
“In (batting practice) I felt really comfortable,” said Parsons, who has two homers on the season. “There’s something about my swing, it was a little off the past couple weeks but I feel a lot better now.”
Westwood got a big night from catcher Greg Homer in the No. 7 spot and Doonan at the bottom each had a walk, single and double.
“Connor came through for us with the nice hit there,” said Paster. “Connor hasn’t got a lot of playing time, but he responded tonight and hit the ball well.”
The bulk of Franklin’s offense came off the bat of shortstop Mike Householder, who knocked in all three runs with a 3-for-4 day, including a solo home run that tied the game in the first.
Householder, who gave Franklin an extra-inning win on Wednesday, added RBI singles in the fourth and sixth innings to pull Post 75 to within a run on both occasions.
The shortstop produced three of Franklin’s six hits on the night and was the only one to deliver a hit with men in scoring as Post 75 was just 2-for-10.
“We’re right there we have six losses, but five have been by three runs or less,” said Franklin coach Mark D’Angelo, whose team fell into sixth place as Foxboro topped Canton. “So we’re right there in every game and that’s okay for a while, but we need to start winning these games. At the end of the season we’re going to look back on some of these games and missed opportunities are going to come back to bite us. Hopefully they don’t.”
Franklin left 10 men on base, included the bases loaded in the first, letting Westwood starter Dave Jablonski off the hook for his bout of wildness as two of his three walks and one of the two batters he hit came in the first inning.
He settled down through the middle innings despite having to work primarily out of the stretch. Jablonski left with a runner on first and one out in the sixth. That runner would came around to score against Greg D’Agincourt, but he left the tying run at second on a groundout to third by Colin Gay.
John Sheehan worked around a leadoff single to get the final three outs in the seventh for the save.
Brian Morante gave Westwood a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, lining a two-out single to center that scored T.J. Manning who reached on an error.
(Keith Pearson is Staff Writer for the Daily News Transcript. He can be reached at (781) 433-8371 or kpearson@cnc.com.)
