Long-ball express powers Wyoma into district finals

WINTHROP – One seven-letter word can best describe the performance put on by Wyoma Tuesday in the winner’s bracket final of the District 16 Little League tournament: Awesome.Facing a talented Saugus National team, Wyoma belted seven (no, that’s not a misprint) home runs, three of them off the bat of Brendan Tobey, to slug its way into Saturday’s district final with a 17-4 win over the three-time defending champions.Wyoma will now play either the Nats, Lynnfield or Swampscott in the finals, with the latter three having to win back-to-back games to take the title.”That was an awesome display of offense,” Wyoma manager Dan O’Neil said. “It was unbelievable.”Tobey’s three homers give him six in three games and account for all six of his base hits in 11 at-bats in the tournament.”It seemed like whatever we did, they were on it,” Nats manager Joe Dominick, whose team hit two homers in the contest, said. “Wyoma is a really good club.”Wyoma’s performance in three tournament games is on par with some of the best seen in district competition in a long time. The team has outscored opponents 46-8 in less than three full games and has hit 11 long balls.”The kids have worked hard and are really coming together,” O’Neil said.The tone for the day was set early on.Cam O’Neil led the game off with a double before Tobey began his team’s version of home run derby with a 275-foot bomb to straightaway center for a 2-0 lead against Nats starter Kory Dominick.O’Neil started for Wyoma and got his hot offense right back up by retiring the side in the first.Wyoma continued to swing the hot bats in the second. Dan Donovan led off with a single but was erased on an Eric Brazell fielder’s choice. A Brett Erelli fielder’s choice retired Brazell for the second out.Greg Gilchrist kept the inning going with a walk that brought the top of the order back up. O’Neil then hit a fence-scraping homer to left that upped Wyoma’s lead to 5-0 after two.The Nats had a big chance to cut into the lead in the bottom of the second as Tom Trainor and Joe Greco singled around an Anthony Allen walk that loaded the bases. But O’Neil struck out No. 9 batter Steven Kay to end the inning.Tyler Granara took over on the mound with two outs in the second for the Nats and held Wyoma scoreless through the third. Justin DiChiara then gave Saugus a little bit of life when he hit a cannon shot over the right-field fence to make it 5-1.But any inkling of a Saugus comeback disappeared in the top of the fourth, when Tobey returned to the scene. Paul Halas drew a leadoff walk before Granara struck out the next two batters. A walk to O’Neil got Tobey to the dish and he delivered with a rocket to right that made it 8-1.The Nats closed back to 8-3 in the bottom of the inning when Trainor doubled and scored on Chris Kelble’s base hit. Kelble later came around on a two-out infield single from Granara. But O’Neil got Dominick on a fielder’s choice to leave the bases loaded.Wyoma got those two runs back in the fifth via home runs Nos. 4 and 5 on the day. First baseman Katey Burt led off the inning with a homer to left-center. One batter later, Dan Donovan found nearly the same spot to up the lead to 10-3.Saugus’ Andrew Cross joined in the home run fun in the bottom of the fifth as his two-out long ball cut the lead back to 10-4.But Wyoma wasn’t done scoring runs quite yet as it finished with a flourish in the sixth.Chris Price singled to lead off. Burt was hit by a pitch and Lucas Harris walked to load the bases. Donovan popped out to the mound before reliever Kay walked Brazell to force in a run.Left fielder Brett Erelli then provided the day’s biggest hit, a grand slam that upped the margin to 15-4. Gilchrist walked and O’Neil struck out before Tobey put the finishing touches on Wyoma’s big day with his third homer of the game, a line shot to right for the game’s final two runs.”We hit the ball very well and played good defense and got good pitching,” O’Neil said.