For those who believed the road to the State Final Eight in Chicopee was already paved for the Walpole American Legion Post 104 squad got a hard dose of reality yesterday at Stonehill College’s Gorman Field.
Against an underdog Hawkeye A.C. squad, Walpole stared elimination in the face trailing in the eighth inning of a deciding Game 3 before getting a pair of unearned runs to move in front and Sam Murray to slam the door shut in 4-3 win and survive South sectional opening round series.
“We certainly dodged a bullet, but we’ve been down this road before and it ain’t easy,” said Walpole coach Chris Costello. “I said it from Jump Street, a lot of people in town are making plans for Chicopee, and I said, ‘Whoa, hold on, slow down a bit.’ There’s going to be a few teams that have something to say about that and Hawkeye certainly did.”
Walpole hosts Easton Post 7 today (4 p.m.) in Game 1 of a best-of-three series that sends the winner to Chicopee.
Trailing 3-2 with just six outs to work with, John Phelan beat out a booted ball to second that put the lead man aboard. Billy Hickey sacrificed him to second and Pat Nicholson singled to right to put runners at the corners. Ricky Graham followed with a bouncer to second that proved to be too slow to turn two as Graham beat the throw to plate Phelan with the tying run.
Joe Cabral, who came into the at-bat hitting just .188 in the postseason, connected on a first-pitch offering from Hawkeye starter Ryan Tartaglia to the gap in right-center. Graham hustling all the way from first narrowly crossed the plate before David Pierce’s relay to third cut down Cabral for the final out.
“I haven’t been seeing the ball real well, but it was outside corner and I just drove it to the opposite field and I kept running, I really didn’t hear anybody yell ‘slide’ so I got caught off-guard there (at third),” said Cabral. “Tomorrow’s another game so we’re lucky to be still going.”
Staked to the lead, Costello went to his ace, who stymied Hawkeye in the opener and showed pitching on his day to throw on the side proved to be no problem, mowing down the side in order in the eighth on just 10 pitches. In the ninth, he surrendered a leadoff single to Leo Finnegan on a terrific at-bat, but bounced back to record a strikeout for the first out.
Hawkeye, desperate to get the tying run into scoring position, sent pinch runner Anthony Tarallo on an 0-2 pitch, but Chris Ferro threw a strike to Phelan to clear the bases and Justin DeAndrade flew to Graham in right to send Walpole on to the next round.
“We had confidence in each other, someone was going to step up and it was another team effort today,” said Cabral. “Sam shut the door as he’s done all season, he’s dynamite, we’re just going day-by-day.”
Tartaglia, who frustrated Post 104 with an assortment of off-speed stuff, settled into a grove in the middle innings retiring 12-of-14 after Walpole grabbed a short-lived 2-1 lead in third on an opposite field single to right from Nicholson.
The only sticky situation the West Bridgewater High rising senior had to work out of was in the seventh as Murray ripped a one-out triple to right-center, but Tartaglia bounced back to strikeout Pat Falvey on a pitch in the dirt and Matt Romines grounded to short to end the threat. He allowed four runs, two earned, on nine hits with one walk and five strikeouts. The lefty finished with 127 pitches, just 19 over the final two innings that allowed him to get through the eighth.
Walpole (26-1) had some success with two outs in the early going to jump in front on two occasions, Falvey singled up the middle to score Cabral from second for a 1-0 lead. Walpole tried to steal a run an insurance run with men at the corners, but a double steal attempt saw Murray narrowly tagged out at the plate on a throw from first baseman Finnegan to catcher Mike Dowd.
Finnegan tied the game in the bottom half with a bases-loaded grounder up the middle that Phelan made a diving stop, but his flip to Cabral at second was late and Greg Gerry scored.
Hickey singled to center and stole second with two outs in the third and Nicholson helped his own cause with an opposite field single to right for a 2-1 lead. Gerry immediately tied the game once again with a single to left-center that plated Dowd.
Nicholson got out of potential trouble in the fourth as a pair of walks and a fly ball put runners at the corners, but he got Pierce to bounce into a 6-4-3 double play that showed a little emotion from the Walpole side for the first time in Easton.
Hawkeye (16-8-1) grabbed the lead for the first time in the sixth, taking advantage of a Nicholson throwing error on a pickoff attempt and Finnegan lined a single to left-center that scored Nick Fedor. The Brandeis right-hander allowed two earned runs over seven innings allowing nine hits and three walks and four strikeouts.
“That’s a good team that we had on the ropes, we just weren’t able to finish them,” said Hawkeye manager Rich Cogliano, who wrapped up his second year in charge.
