Prior to last night’s District 6 West American Legion season finale between Norwood Post 70 and Needham Post 14 at Peter Wall Field, Norwood held a ceremony to honor the memory of former Post 70 parent and fans Chris “Kibby” Curran, who passed away suddenly within the past year.
The touching tribute, which included a large throng of family and friends and the creation of new team award in his name, pulled off beautifully by all involved.
With Norwood needing a win to secure the No. 2 seed in the West and Needham already locked into the fourth spot, Post 70 raced out to leads of 10-1 and 11-3. But Norwood still had to sweat out a wild last few frames as Post 14 got the winning run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh before Joe Trahon slammed the door, striking out Drew Roy with a pair on for an 11-9 victory.
The win guarantees Norwood, which wraps up the regular season in second place at 15-7, home field advantage in its best-of-three district playoff series with Quincy Post 95, which begins in Norwood Monday night.
“We like playing here,” said Norwood coach Paul Samargedlis. “I heard from somebody on the other side how dominant a team Quincy is, but we’ll show up.”
Needham finishes at 12-9-1 and will face Braintree in the districts.
“We wanted to stay away from our big guns then we got sloppy, we had a couple innings that really hurt us,” said Needham manager John Gallello. “We wanted to get everyone and move some guys around but then we had some pitchers hurt and nothing went according to schedule. But all-in-all, coming back was pretty good, the guys hung in there.”
Despite seeing its lead cut in half in a four-run Needham sixth, Norwood carried an 11-7 lead into the bottom of the seventh, with fieldless Post 14 serving as the home team, with Kyle McCabe on the mound for his second inning.
But an error and single put two on with one out for Bobby Atkinson, who rifled a wicked line drive up the middle that drilled McCabe directly on the knee, propelling the ball on the fly over the head of first baseman Christos Ferreria for a single to load the bases.
It also knocked McCabe out of the game and brought in Trahon, the sixth Norwood pitcher of the night and 11th overall. Trahon, who had pitched just two innings this summer entering the game, walked pinch-hitter Joe Herer to force in a run, but got Eric Rosenberg to ground to short. Norwood traded an out for a run and great scoop by Ferreria on the double play attempt kept a second run from coming home and kept the tying run out of scoring position.
That set up the Trahon-Roy showdown, with the Post 70 right-hander prevailing with the whiff for his first save of the season.
“He did the job,” said Samargedlis. “We didn’t want to run any of our guys out there too long and now out rotation is set up.”
Norwood sent Chris Foley to the mound on three days rest against a Needham lineup missing a number of regulars. Foley threw three innings of one-hit ball before departing after an eight-run Norwood fourth that appeared at the time to break the game open.
Mike Green’s RBI ground out in the second gave Needham a brief 1-0 lead, which Norwood snatched with two in the third on a McCabe single, a Tony Verrochi walk, an error and an Alex LiDonni sacrifice fly.
Then came an ugly inning for Post 14 that saw them commit four errors, throw three wild pitches and go through three different hurlers as Norwood sent 14 batters to the plate in boosting the lead to 10-1.
Pat Eckhardt led the inning off with a home run into the screen down the left field line, following up on his walkoff shot Tuesday night. It was the only batter of the night for Needham’s Aron Gedansky as the diminutive lefty left clutching his pitching shoulder. Eckhardt and Jesse Shaughnessy each collected two of the eight Norwood hits in the inning before Matt Dunn, the fourth Needham pitcher of the night, mercifully ended it.
Needham pecked away though as Norwood took its foot of the gas, getting two in the fourth to make it 10-3. Norwood got one back for an 11-3 lead and got a 1-2-3 inning from Joe Santisi and it look good for the hosts headed into the bottom of the sixth.
But Eckhardt encountered control problems in the sixth, walking three batters and allowing a run to start the inning before departing. McCabe got two quick outs but a Roy single and an error brought three more in and it was 11-7, setting up the dramatic final sequence.
“I probably relaxed a little bit because we were up 11-3 and Needham really didn’t need this game,” said Samargedlis. “We stopped running and didn’t bunt but Needham swung the bats and we helped them by giving them base on balls and that stuff but maybe it’s good that your in a tight situation. That was playoff baseball that last inning.”
Baseball no doubt Kibby Curran would have enjoyed from his familiar spot out beyond left field.
“That was the perfect way to start off this new (playoff) season,” said Samargdlis. “It was special, you saw how many people were here and what he meant to this community and we just wanted to do something special for his family.”
