Peabody’s late-inning explosion upends Classical

LYNN – For four innings, things were going perfectly for the Lynn Classical baseball team, as the Rams were leading Peabody 5-3 on Wednesday at Fraser Field. Unfortunately for the Rams, the Tanners had three innings remaining.And in those three innings, Peabody’s offense exploded for 12 runs and 14 hits to turn that 5-3 deficit into a comfortable 15-5 win.”For four innings we hit the ball hard and they were making the plays,” Peabody coach Mark Bettencourt said. “But we’ve got a lot of guys swinging hot sticks right now and they came through.”The problem for Classical came from the fact that the top three hitters in the Peabody lineup – Brad Piza, Marc Finocchio and Tom Ciulla – made life miserable for the Rams. The three combined to go 6-for-9 with four RBI and nine runs scored.”Peabody is a good team and they hit the ball hard,” Classical coach Mike Zukowski said. “I think we were just a little too relaxed in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. We let up too much.”The scoring began early as Peabody (5-3) pushed a pair of unearned runs across against Rams starter Greg Rybak in the top of the first.Piza walked to begin the game and promptly stole second. Finocchio then laid down a bunt that was thrown away, putting runners on the corners. An errant pickoff throw ensued and Piza scored to give Peabody the lead.Rybak got the next two batters before Joey Gruntkosky hit an RBI single – the first Tanner hit of the day – to score Finocchio to make it 2-0.Classical’s response was emphatic in the bottom of the first when T.J. Bartlett singled with one out and then Eddie Terrero blasted a 2-run homer over the left-field fence with two down to tie the game at 2-2.The Rams pushed in front in the second when third baseman Ellido Reyes led off the inning with a mammoth homer to left-center to make it 3-2. Rybak followed with a triple to center, and he scored on Christian Gonzalez’ sacrifice fly to center.Peabody cut the gap to 4-3 in the third when Gruntkosky singled home Finocchio, who had walked and moved to third on a stolen base and an error. The Rams got that run back in the fifth to go back in front by two when Rybak singled and later scored on Brian Kolodziej’s base hit.The Tanners then found the mark in the fifth, sending 10 men to the plate in pounding out six runs on seven hits and two errors.Andrew Bucci reached on an error to start the onslaught. Piza followed with a double and Finocchio’s base hit plated Bucci to make it 5-4. Ciulla followed with a hit to tie the game at 5-5 before Gruntkoski drove in two more runs on a base hit that gave Peabody a 7-5 lead.Mark Linehan and Ramses Vittini followed with base hits before Jared Shields’ 2-run single scored both Linehan and Vittini to give Peabody a 9-5 lead.”We finally got some balls to go through in the fifth,” Bettencourt said. “We had been getting good swings before that, but they were making the plays.”Pat Dumas replaced Gruntkosky on the mound for Peabody and proceeded to shut the door on Classical. The Tanners’ relief ace didn’t allow a hit over the final three innings, striking out four.Peabody put the game out of reach in the sixth, scoring four more times on five hits. Finocchio, Ciulla, Ryan English and Vittini all drove in runs in the sixth. Pinch hitter Tom Linnane closed the scoring when he ripped a 2-run homer in the seventh for Peabody.