It’s all over for Lynn Babe Ruth 15s

LYNN – It was probably asking too much for the Lynn 15-year old Babe Ruth all-star team to pull off another miracle run through the state tournament, having won the title as 14’s from the losers bracket.On Friday at Clancy Field, the law of averages finally caught up with Lynn.Arlington scored twice in each of the first two innings and never looked back as Christian Riera held Lynn to three hits en route to a 10-0, 6-inning win that was shortened by the mercy rule.Arlington advances to play Peabody today (12) in the losers bracket final. Peabody was hammered by Plymouth, 8-3, in the winners bracket final on Friday.”You can’t get yourself down against a team like that,” Lynn manager Brian Mulvey said. “It just didn’t happen with the hits (Friday). We hit the ball hard but right at people.”The score wasn’t truly indicative of how competitive the game was for most of the way. Three times Lynn saw big innings thwarted by inning-ending double plays that helped Riera immensely.”Those really hurt us,” Mulvey said.Another thing that hurt Lynn was that Tyler Gauthier did not have his best stuff when it was needed. In the first, Arlington pretty much tattooed any mistake that Gauthier made.Pat Connington led the game off with a single and scored on J.P. Calcaterra’s double. Dave Cunningham quickly doubled the lead to 2-0 when he ripped a double over Alex Fiste’s head to the wall in center.Cunningham was caught trying to swipe third before Gautheir struck out Aiden Hartigan and Riera to end the inning.Lynn threatened to come right back in the first when Cam Mulvey walked and Brendan Carritte singled with one out. But Riera got the first of his hat trick of double plays when Sam Hill’s scorching liner to second was snared by Hartigan, who flipped to first to double up Carritte.Arlington tacked on two more runs in the second to take a 4-0 lead. A one out walk to Byron Johnson and a single from Connington was followed by a two out hit from Cunningham to make it 3-0. Back-to-back walks then forced Connington home.Gauthier departed one out into the third after hitting Riera and walking Jack Powers. Carritte came in and got Lynn out of the inning.”Brendan came in and did a great job for us,” Mulvey said. “He really gave us a chance to get back in the game.”But Lynn simply couldn’t get a hit when it needed one. In the third, Andrew Hunter’s infield single was followed by a Gabe Smith grounder to Riera that started a 1-6-3 inning-ending double play.An inning later, it was the same scenario. Carritte reached on an infield single with one out but Hill hit a chopper to Connington at short, who tagged second and threw on to first to retire Hill.Arlington then put the game out of reach in the third, tagging Carritte for three unearned runs on one hit, one error, three walks and a hit batter. Connington provided the big hit as his 2-run single scored T.J. Ahearn and Powers to make it 7-0.Three more runs in the sixth followed by a perfect inning from Riera spelled the end of Lynn’s title hopes.”These guys have gone 18-5 over the last two years. That’s not too bad between district, state and regional play,” Mulvey said.UFor Peabody, it was a case of a shaky start being the difference against Plymouth.Spotting Plymouth seven runs over the first two innings, Peabody simply couldn’t recover. Three straight hits with one out in the first, along with two errors, a walk and a hit batter resulted in five first inning runs against Charlie Helas.Plymouth added two more in the second on three hits and an outfield error to grab a 7-0 lead. But Peabody showed some fight and made a game of it in the fourth.Brian Church and Helas singled before Joe Losanno walked to load the bases. Peter Nelson walked with one out to force in a run before Matt Turmenne’s 2-run single cut the gap to 7-3.But that was as close as Peabody got. Plymouth added a run in the bottom of the fourth and then got rally-killing double plays in the sixth and seventh innings to seal the win.