Peabody 15s open state Babe Ruth tourney with a win

LYNN ? Charlie Helas limited Lawrence to one hit and an opportunistic Peabody team took advantage of eight errors to breeze to a 13-2 win in the first round of the Babe Ruth 15-year-old state tournament, Friday night, at Fraser Field.The game was called after six innings due to the 10-run rule. Peabody faces either Braintree or Arlington in a winner’s bracket game on Sunday (10 a.m.), in the double elimination format.”Winning the first game is important,” Peabody manager Al Losanno said. “We lost the first game last year in the 14-year-old tournament and it really makes it tough. You have to play a lot of baseball.”Peabody pounded out 12 hits and scored in every inning. Joe Losanno had a double and a single and scored twice, while Bryan Church reached base three times, scored two runs and drove in another. Batting out of the 9-hole, Wes Sanders had a double, single, one run and one RBI.All that offense was more than enough for Helas, whose bid for a no-hitter ended with an infield single by Lawrence’s Anthony Gonzalez with one out in the top of the fourth. The game wasn’t a breeze by any measure though, as Helas had to pitch around four walks and five errors, including one of his own that led to a run. Helas struck out eight.”He did a great job,” Loasanno said.Peabody broke on top with two runs in the top of the first off Lawrence starter Jorge Santiago. Dylan Johnson singled and Alex Minter reached first on an error. Church drove in Johnson with a single. A fielder’s choice moved Minter to third, and he scored after Losanno lined out to left. Minter got a late break on a tag-up at third, but Rodriguez couldn’t hold onto the ball at the plate and Minter was safePeabody added another run in the second when Peter Nelson drew a leadoff walk, went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Pat Barrett and scored on a single to left by Sanders.Two more runs came home in the third on a double by Church, a single by Losanno, a sacrifice fly by Matt Turmenne and an error.Lawrence finally scored in the bottom of the third when Francisco Mota reached second base on an error, went to third when he tagged up after a sensational diving catch by Turmenne in rightfield, and then came home on a wild pickoff attempt by Helas.Peabody came back with a single run in the fourth off relief pitcher Rodriguez on a double by Sanders and an infield single by Minter, and then put the game away with four runs in the fifth on consecutive hits by Helas, Losanno, Ramses Vittini, Rick Tardiff and a throwing error.Lawrence got its final run in the fifth on a couple of Peabody errors and a double steal. Peabody answered with three runs in the sixth. Minter and Church reached on errors and eventually scored when Steve Hatchouel bounced a single through a drawn-in infield. Hatchouel came around on three wild pitches.In the bottom of the sixth, Helas retired the side without allowing a base-runner, the first such occurrence in the game.