LYNN – Joe Caponigro remembers well what happened last year ? when his English baseball team won two games easily over Lynn Classical only to lose to the Rams in the Clancy Tournament.Well, here we are again. The Bulldogs last night completed a two-game sweep over Classical for the second straight year, with a 16-0 rout at Fraser Field. They scored 10 runs in the first game last month.Click here for a photo gallery from Wednesday’s game.And who do they play Sunday night (7) in the nightcap of the Clancy Tournament? That’s right. Classical.”Oh, yes, I remember last year,” said Caponigro, whose Bulldogs rebounded after a couple of tough losses to Peabody and Beverly. “And they’ll (the players) will remember it, too, in a few minutes (when he addressed the team).””There isn’t a lot to say,” said Classical’s Mike Zukowski. “You have to hit the ball ? and pitch the ball, and English did both. They’re hot. Everything we threw up there, they hit.””It was the best effort we’ve had, pitching and hitting, all year,” Caponigro said.Pitcher Mike Gonzales was the beneficiary of all the heavy hitting. The Bulldogs’ righty struck out nine Rams in pitching the team’s first shutout of the season.On the offensive side, the Bulldogs pounded out 14 hits, with Eric Bransfield – the No. 9 hitter – stroking two home runs and knocking in five runs.Also for English, Richie Arias had three hits and five RBI.It was a game for three innings, but English erupted for seven runs in the top of the fourth, and it happened in lightning-like fashion.After Classical starter Kyle Gauthier got the first out, the next eight Bulldogs reached base. It started harmlessly enough when Jonathan Surette reached on an infield single and Roberto Reyes walked. Brian Maynard singled to load the bases, Arias’ infield hit made it 1-0, and Dani Vicente knocked home two more with a single, as did Brendan Carritte, and it was 5-0. Bransfield took care of the next two with a towering home run over the fence in right.Arias, Vicente and Carritte knocked in runs in a three-run fifth to make it 10-0, and then the Bulldogs scored six more – five of them unearned – in the sixth. Bransfield knocked in three of them with his second homer – a line drive over the right-field fence.”That kid ?” said Zukowski. “The ball must have looked (extremely) big to him. We couldn’t do anything with him.”The annual Nipper Clancy Tournament begins Sunday (4) with St. Mary’s facing North Reading. The Bulldogs and Rams meet in the nightcap at 7.
