Peabody West LL advances to New England Regional championship game

BRISTOL, CT – The Peabody West all-stars have a date with a national television audience on Saturday afternoon.Led by the outstanding pitching of Matt Hosman and an attack that pounded out 11 hits and 12 runs, all of them unearned, the Massachusetts state champs belted their way into Saturday’s New England Regional championship game (2, ESPN) with a 12-1, 4-inning semifinal win over Glastonbury, CT.Peabody will play either Lincoln, RI or Brattleboro, VT in the finals and now sit a win away from becoming the second North Shore team in six seasons to reach the Little League World Series.”I admit that a little part of me, way back when, thought that we had a chance. And now we’re here,” Peabody manager Dave Batchelor said.Facing Glastonbury for the second time in less than 24 hours, Peabody pretty much had its way with the Connecticut champs. About the only thing that went wrong was Traverse Briana being called out for stepping out of the batter’s box when he belted a 2-run homer in the fourth inning.Hosman, though, was simply dominant.Only two Glastonbury hitters put the ball in play and that didn’t come until the fourth inning. Hosman needed only 74 pitches to strike out 10 and walk one. The lone blemish was Nate Mandell’s fifth homer of the tournament, a bomb into the woods behind the left field bleachers in the third.”I was just trying to throw hard strikes,” Hosman said. “And let the guys make the plays behind me.”Peabody threatened in the top of the first against Glastonbury starter Andrew Takehashi but couldn’t score. Hosman struck out the side in the bottom of the inning, giving his offense a chance to break the ice in the second.Takehashi got A.J. DiFillipo and Sean McGrath to begin the inning. Matt Gonick then hit a grounder to second that was booted to keep the inning alive.Matt Correale followed with a double that put two runners in scoring position before Hosman made Glastonbury pay for extending the inning when he dropped a 3-run homer just over the right field fence to give Peabody a 3-0 lead.”We hit so many balls hard that they had some tough plays,” Batchelor said.Three more Hosman strikeouts followed in the bottom of the second before Peabody used a little small ball to extend the lead to 4-0.Mike Petrosino worked a walk and then went to second when DiFillipo reached on an error. A passed ball moved him to third and he scored when Mandell couldn’t handle a third strike against Cody Wlasuk.Hosman struck out the first two batters in the Glastonbury third before Mandell teed off on a high fastball to cut the lead to 4-1. The 5-8 righty shook that off and got Matt Del Mastro looking to end the inning.The wheels finally fell off the wagon for Glastonbury in the fourth, when, for the second straight game, Peabody would bat around and break the game wide open.Hosman got things started with an infield single. Austin Batchelor reached on an error and Briana singled to load the bases. After a pop out, Nick Bona worked a walk to score Hosman to make it 5-1.An error on a DiFillipo grounder scored Batchelor before Sean McGrath stroked a 2-run single to left to up the gap to 8-1 and knock Takehashi out of the game.Josh Herlands took over on the mound and immediately saw Gonick belt his first homer in tournament play, a 3-run shot over the right field fence to give Peabody an 11-1 lead.”I’ve been looking for that homer since we started district play,” Gonick said. “And I finally got one.”Hosman got his second hit of the inning and fourth of the game with two outs and went to third on an error. Batchelor delivered him with his second hit of the game and seventh RBI of the tournament to make it 12-1.Briana then belted his homer into the left field bleachers, but his front foot came out of the batters box and home plate umpire John Christofor called him out. By that point, though, the outcome was no longer in doubt and Peabody’s place on national television was set.”It’s something you think about but I never thought it would happ