Baseball: Peabody clinches share of NEC North crown

It was a little more hair-raising than Peabody coach Mark Bettencourt would have preferred on Monday, but his Tanners accomplished what they had to at Salem State College: claiming a share of the Northeastern Conference North crown.The Tanners scored three times in the top of the first inning to take the lead and never trailed, surviving a Salem comeback in the seventh, to take a 6-4 win over the Witches.”We can never make it easy on ourselves in the seventh,” joked Bettencourt. “We came out of the box flying, which we love to do, and we got the job done.”Bobby Losanno once again was the spark plug for the Peabody offense as he went 2-for-3 with a pair of RBI. Fellow sophomore Genaro Ciulla also was 2-for-3 and scored twice while Joey Gruntkosky was 2-for-4 and got the win on the mound.”We felt that despite all we lost, we had enough of a core back to be successful and contend,” Bettencourt said. “We needed some help and we’ve gotten some great surprises from people this year.”Swampscott 9, Winthrop 1At Swampscott, Tommy Keenan needed only 77 pitches to go the distance as the Big Blue had the bats going in this one as well. Mike Walsh and Matt Barbuzzi had three- and two-run homers, respectively, while Gino Cresta also drove home a run.Keenan scattered four hits, struck out three and didn’t walk a batter.”Tommy is real tough and he showed it (Monday),” Swampscott coach T.J. Baril said.The Big Blue (5-13) scored twice in the fourth and sixth innings while using a 4-run fifth to bust the game open.English 22, Revere 1At Fraser Field, the Bulldogs (13-4, 11-4 NEC North) were able to get everyone in and used four different pitchers in the win. Catcher Roberto Reyes had a homer and three RBI while Dani Vicente had two hits and three RBI.Eric Bransfield ripped a homer, scored twice, and drove in two runs while Ben Bowden was 2-for-3 with three RBI and four runs scored. Melvin Cabrera also drove home two.Marblehead 8, Danvers 6At Seaside Park in Marblehead, the Falcons (12-5) led 5-0 and 6-1 but saw shaky defense and timely hitting by the Magicians (8-9) fuel the Marblehead comeback.”We’ve been in pretty much every game we’ve played this year,” Marblehead coach Jason Tarasuik said. “So it was nice to see us finally pull one out in the late innings.”Matt Temme was 2-for-3 with two RBI for Marblehead and also got the win on the mound. Colton Dana was 2-for-2 with an RBI and Dan Colbert was 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI.The Falcons got two hits and two RBI from Zach Ryan and a pair of hits and an RBI from Scott Hovey. Catcher Eric Burgos also drove in two runs.Gloucester 8, Saugus 7At World Series Park in Saugus, the Fishermen trailed all game but rallied for four runs in the sixth inning to take the lead for good.Derek Cody had a pair of hits and two RBI for Gloucester.St. John’s (S) 6, St. John’s (D) 3At Shrewsbury, the Eagles (10-8) got RBI from Pat Connaughton, Kevin Barry, Anthony Capuano and Jacob Barosin but came up short against the Pioneers.