Swampscott Little League brings the bats in victory

REVERE – Swampscott didn’t come out swinging for the fence in Monday’s District 16 Little League All-Star game against Winthrop, but the ball seemed to find it anyway.Swampscott parked four balls over the wall at McMackin Park in a 9-1 win that sent Winthrop packing. Swampscott will continue to fight its way through the losers’ bracket when it plays Lynnfield Wednesday at Wyoma (5:45). The two teams met earlier in the tournament, with Swampscott winning, 6-4.”It was nice to have the bats break out like that,” Swampscott manager Michael Leblanc said.Swampscott also enjoyed a solid pitching performance by starter Trevor Massey, who only allowed one hit in 4 2/3 innings. He struck out eight and walked five. Greg Collier came on in relief in the fifth. He didn’t allow a hit, and he struck out two.Massey hit a couple of rough spots, but escaped with minimal damage. Winthrop had its best scoring opportunity in the first inning when Dan Eruzione singled down the right-field line and Massey walked the next two batters to load the bases, but Massey righted the ship in a hurry, striking out the next batter and getting the third out on a ground ball to get out of the inning unscathed.”I think he got stronger as the game went on,” Leblanc said.Massey not only got stronger on the mound, but he sparked Swampscott’s home run derby when he led off the bottom of the first by hitting the first pitch over the centerfield fence.Peabody upped its lead to 2-0 in the second inning when Griffin Hunt hit a line shot over the left-centerfield fence. Massey threatened again that inning with a fly ball to deep center, but Eruzione was there to reel this one in.Winthrop scored its only run in the third when Hunter Dempsey walked, reached third on passed balls, and scored on an Eruzione ground ball to second. The killer blow for Winthrop came in the bottom of the second when Nick Agresti hit a two-run homer over the right-centerfield fence to put Swampscott on top, 4-1.Winthrop made some noise in the fifth inning with back-to-back walks, but Greg Collier put out the fire by getting a strikeout to end the inning.Swampscott blew the game open with five runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. The first scored on a wild pitch. The next two came courtesy of Nunzio Morretti, who came off the bench and, with two runners on base, tripled to centerfield, giving Swampscott an insurmountable 7-1 lead. Hunt supplied the icing on the cake with a two-run blast over the centerfield fence for the 9-1 final.”They (Swampscott) hit the ball well,” Winthrop manager Vin Eruzione said. “Their pitching was good, too.”Eruzione said his team stranded too many runners on base, but he was happy with the way the team performed overall in the tournament.”We knocked off two teams,” he said, adding that’s something a Winthrop team has not done in a while.Joe Skoczylas took the loss for Winthrop.