Peabody West claims second state Little League title in four years

BEVERLY – The motivation has been clear since it first began practicing on June 1, and now the Peabody Western all-star team is going back to a spot it hasn’t seen in three years: The New England Regional in Bristol, CT.To get there, though, the four-time District 15 and Section Four champions had to look to a pair of unlikely heroes and one very likely hero.A.J. DiFillipo’s snare of Jonny Levenfeld’s lined shot in the top of the fifth inning started a double play that kept Peabody in the game. Austin Batchelor then made the play pay off when he slammed a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning to give Peabody the lead and an eventual 4-3 win over Newton Central to claim the program’s second state title and a matchup with Bangor, ME when it begins pool play on Saturday (11) at Breen Field.”We knew when we started on June 1 that we had a pretty good chance,” Peabody West manager Dave Batchelor said. “You have to be a little bit lucky when you get to this level and A.J. made a great play to save a run there ? And Austin absolutely hit a bomb.”Batchelor also had the pride of a father while getting to watch his son hit the home run that propelled his team to Bristol.”I was thrilled for Austin naturally because he’s my son. But it also put us up a run and then I knew we had a chance,” Batchelor said.The real hero of the day, however, was relief pitcher Nick Bona. After having not taken the mound in district or sectional play, Bona was called in from third base to take over for Batchelor in the fifth. He was the beneficiary of DiFillipo’s spectacular play and then shut the door on Newton in the sixth.”That’s the first time Nick has been on the mound,” Batchelor said. “But he’s got a good arm and is always throwing live in batting practice. If he had struggled, we didn’t know where we were going to go next.”Whether it was a case of nerves on the big stage, Peabody got off to a very slow start Monday.Austin Batchelor got the ball for West and promptly used 44 of his 85-pitch allotment in the first two innings. Newton scored a run in the first on an RBI double from Zeke Berg, but Batchelor did some excellent damage control to keep the score 1-0 through two.Batchelor’s counterpart, Ben Porter, was having no problems at all with Peabody early, needing only 22 pitches to work two hitless innings.Porter also got a third-inning rally started when he singled to left to begin the top of the inning. Isaiah Berg ripped a one-out single before both runners moved up a base on a groundout. Then, with Theo Resnick up, Porter and Berg came in to score on a passed ball and an errant throw to the plate to give Newton a 3-0 lead.”When it got to be 3-0, the team got a little bit down,” Batchelor said. “But coach (Danny Marchese) and I kept telling them to hang in there.”When Porter struck out Matt Gonick and Matt Correale to begin the bottom of the third, it looked for all the world like Peabody was in deep trouble. But Matt Hosman fouled off several pitches to draw a walk and Batchelor followed with another.Traverse Briana then helped pile up the pitch count on Porter by fouling off seven more pitches before driving a single to center that brought Hosman and Batchelor home to make it a 3-2 game. By inning’s end, Porter had thrown 45 pitches to see his count balloon to 67.”We started taking some pitches and it worked for us,” Batchelor said. “We knew that if we could get him out of the game, we stood a better chance.”Porter would depart after working a perfect fourth and Batchelor exited after a Porter single to begin the fifth. Bona then got Peabody out of the inning, allowing his teammates to go to work against the Newton bullpen.Hosman drew his second walk of the game to begin the fifth against Theo Resnick. Austin Batchelor didn’t waste much time in putting his team ahead for good as he launched Resnick’s first offering 300-plus feet over the right-center fence to give West a 4-3 lead.”Austin got all of that one,” Batchelor said.Bona got two quick o