FILE PHOTO
Chris Francoeur hit a 2-RBI double in the fourth innings.
By STEVE KRAUSE
DANVERS — The Catholic Conference doesn’t have many peers when it comes to high school sports. As a league of five teams, it’s generally at or near the top in just about every sport.
However, if there is an exception, it may be baseball, where the Bay State League gives it a good run for its money. St. John’s Prep ought to know about that. The Eagles have lost the state Division 1A final to Braintree for the past two seasons.
So the eyes of the baseball world were upon the Brother Linus Commons Friday when Newton North, another BSL team — and one that had thrashed Braintree earlier this week — came to town. But the Eagles held their ground on their home turf, defeating the Tigers, 7-5. It was a long game made even longer by the fact that North got stuck in a monster of a traffic jam — exacerbated by a rollover — on Route 128.
“And,” said coach Dan Letarte, “the first couple of innings really took a long time to play. A lot of full counts and walks.”
Newton’s Joe Siciliano had the answer for that.
“That’s a good hitting team,” said Siciliano, a coaching legend in Newton. “We had to pitch them carefully and we walked a lot of hitters.”
Four Eagles drew bases on balls, one of them intentionally, and another was hit by a pitch. Three of those runners came around to score.
“I knew it was something like that,” said Siciliano. “It always seems to happen that way.”
The Tigers, 12-6, scored first when Cole Whitehouse knocked home Spencer Checkoway with a single. However, the Eagles got two runs off North starter Jimmy Hodgson when Frank DiOrio drove home one with a base hit and The Prep scored the other on a double steal.
St. John’s starter Zeke O’Connell struggled from the outset, and the Tigers got two off him in the top of the second. Hodgson scored the first on a base hit and Ricky Alexy knocked in the other.
Undaunted, The Prep retook the lead in the bottom of the second with two more runs, both of them coming home on a well-placed double to right-center field by second baseman Tom Bolger scoring Joe Muzio and Andrew Dembowski.
Zach Begin, who had relieved O’Connell in the second inning, held North at bay, giving up only one run until the seventh. Meanwhile, the Eagles kept padding their lead.
They got two more runs in the fourth to go up 6-3, both scoring on Chris Francoeur’s double.
The teams traded runs in the fifth inning, with Tyler McGregor’s infield hit scoring Dembowski to make the score 7-4 heading into the seventh. Begin left the game after giving up an opposite-field home run, and Dan Regan came in to get the final two outs.
“I was happy with the way we hit,” said Letarte. “Newton North has been red-hot coming into this game, so it was great to beat them.”
