Swampscott Little League baseball team pulls a Houdini in win over Lynnfield

LYNN – Even Swampscott manager Mike LeBlanc couldn’t figure out how his team escaped Reinfuss Field on Thursday with an 11-9 win in seven innings over Lynnfield in the District 16 Little League tournament.Swampscott, which came to the field to resume the suspended game in a 5-1 hole, took advantage of six Lynnfield errors in the final four innings and stellar relief pitching from 11 year old James Collier to survive.Swampscott will play Saugus National today (5:45) at East Lynn in the loser’s bracket final, with the winner having to beat Wyoma twice in the district final.”That’s a big sigh of relief,” LeBlanc said. “The kids battled and played with heart the whole game. They came here with a game plan (Thursday) and just battled through the whole game.”Across the diamond in the Lynnfield dugout, there was stunned silence as it realized that a golden opportunity to stay alive had slipped away.”Give a lot of credit to Swampscott. They accomplished what they had to do,” Lynnfield manager Kevin Canty said. “They didn’t make mistakes and we did and that hurt us.”When the rain came on Wednesday, Swampscott’s John King was on first with no outs and a one ball count on Nick Agresti. That’s where play began on Thursday and so did Swampscott’s comeback.Jake Burt took over for Steve Carangelo on the mound and King immediately went to second on a passed ball. Agresti followed with an infield single to put runners at the corners.Agresti stole second before Burt struck out Trevor Massey. Another passed ball brought King home and sent Agresti to third. David Reichert worked a walk and was part of a perfectly executed double steal that scored Agresti to make it 5-3.An error on Pat Burkett’s grounder to second was followed by a James Collins single to center that scored Burkett and Reichert to tie the game at 5-5.Unfazed by the quick comeback from Swampscott, Lynnfield retook the lead in the bottom of the fourth when John Festa walke with one out and came around on two passed balls and a groundout.Lynnfield’s lead didn’t last long as Swampscott put up four more runs in the fifth. King reached on a leadoff error and came all the way around on Massey’s triple to the right field corner. A throwing error on the play let Massey come home for a 7-6 lead.Reichert reached on an infield single and Burkett walked, spelling the end of Burt’s day. Festa took over and saw Collins reach on an error to load the bases. Brendan McDonald’s hit to center upped the lead to 9-6 before Festa escaped further damage.”I felt confident with Jake on the mound but he didn’t have his best game,” Canty said.Lynnfield got two back in the bottom of the inning as it knocked Waters out after he allowed Andrew Crampe and Greg Basilesco to reach. With Collins now in, a passed ball moved both runners up for Jordan Roper, who’s infield single scored Crampe.Festa followed with a hit to left-center that scored Basilesco to make it 9-8 heading to the sixth, where Swampscott went quietly and gave Lynnfield a chance to escape.One-out walks to Pat Scanlon and Pat Kearney preceded a Crampe single that loaded the bases and brought Collier to the mound. He got Basilesco to ground to short, but the throw home was high and allowed Scanlon to score the tying run.With the winning run 60 feet away, Collins got Brandon Franco on a fly to left and struck out Roper to keep the game going.”Greg has played for me in the regular season for two years and I have all the confidence in the world in him,” LeBlanc said. “All he comes in and does is throw strikes.”In the seventh, Reichert walked with one out and was on second with two outs when Collins’ blooper to third was missed, keeping the inning alive. Reichert then scored on a passed ball to make it 10-9. Collier upped the lead to 11-9 with a hit to center and then made the lead hold up in the bottom of the seventh.