Homers propel English baseball team to win

BEVERLY – With the top of the Northeastern Conference’s North division standings about as tight as the windings on a baseball, Friday’s game at Cooney Field between Lynn English and Beverly took on added significance.Click here for English baseball picturesFor five innings on Friday, it looked like the Panthers were on their way to a season sweep of the Bulldogs as they led 1-0. Then left fielder Brendan Carritte gave English the lift it needed, tying the game with a solo homer off reliever Mark Theriault. Gabe Smith’s 2-run single later in the inning put English up for good en route to a 4-2 win.”Beverly is an outstanding team,” English coach Joe Caponigro said. “Obviously coach (Dave) Wilbur does a great job and they were ready to play?The story was Matty Burnham and how he was outstanding on the mound.”Taking the mound for the first time since pitching in a 9-inning win over Danvers, Burnham put the shackles on one of the most potent lineups in the NEC, allowing only four hits and two earn runs.”Matty hasn’t pitched since the Danvers game but he earned this start (Friday) and he did a great job,” Caponigro said. “He had great command and was just outstanding.”Across the diamond, the outlook was quite different for the black-and-orange. Beverly starter Dan Cashman held English scoreless for five innings before the bullpen surrendered the lead, much to the dismay of the Panthers coach.”You can’t have relief pitchers come in and give up homers,” Wilbur said. “Dan did a fantastic job holding them down and we let it get away.”English (12-3) had chances early to get on the board against Cashman, stranding a pair of runners in the first and then loading the bases with two outs in the second but failed to score once again.In the third, the Panthers (9-6) broke the ice against Burnham.Mark Hannable and Andy Brown drew walks to open the inning. Ethan Trowt followed with a single to load the bases. Burnham got Joe Wioncek to ground into a double play, with Hannable scoring on the back end to make it 1-0 after three.Cashman also had it on relative cruise control at this point, working a quiet fourth before escaping a mini-jam in the fifth when Wilbur was ready to bring Theriault in from the bullpen.”Danny earned the right to finish on a good note and he did,” Wilbur said. “But he was up to 89 pitches at that point and was getting tired so we had to make the move.”Theriault took the mound in the sixth and got Brian Maynard to fly to Steve DuBois in right to begin the inning. Two pitches later, Theriault missed with a fastball and Carritte lined it over the left-center fence to tie the game up.Eric Bransfield followed with a walk and Andrew Hunter legged out a double to bring Kyle Johnson on to relieve Theriault. Ben Bowden was intentionally walked to load the bases and Smith delivered a 2-run single to right to give English the lead.”That was a big hit by Brendan to get us going and another leader in Gabe comes up big for us also,” Caponigro said.Beverly clawed back within a run in the bottom of the sixth before Maynard added an insurance run in the seventh with a towering homer to dead center. Burnham then worked around a single in the seventh to close things.