English baseball pulls off stirring rally to defeat Classical

LYNN – Not even the best of screenwriters could have dreamed up the ending to Thursday’s Classical-English baseball game at Fraser Field. If they had, it probably would have been rejected sight unseen.Playing for their tournament lives, the Rams had a 3-1 lead with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning and Kyle Gauthier throwing a gem, but a dropped third strike on Gabe Smith gave the Bulldogs life?and English took it.Dani Vicente played the hero as he blooped a single into short left to score two runs and complete a dramatic 4-3 comeback win for English.Click here for a photo gallery.”We got the break with Gabe on that third strike and sometimes you have to get that in this game,” English coach Joe Caponigro said. “Classical played their hearts out and Kyle threw a great game for them. Baseball can just be crazy sometimes.”For the green-and-gold, it was a shocking end to a day that had seen them do everything to near perfection for 6.2 innings.”I couldn’t have asked for any more from Kyle,” Classical coach Mike Zukowski said. “I knew when he came in to the park (Friday) that he had it. He just had that look in his eyes. The ball just didn’t bounce our way in the seventh.”The bottom of the seventh started innocently enough as Gauthier (6.2 IP, 9K, 3 BB, 6H) got Eric Bransfield and Ben Bowden to quickly ground out. Pinch hitter Matt Burnham then drew a walk to keep the Bulldogs alive and bring the top of the order up.Smith then waved at a sharp breaking ball that would have ended the game but it was too good of a pitch and got away from Eddie Terrero, allowing Smith to reach.Junior Santos then increased the drama as he reached on an infield single to load the bases. Another passed ball with Vicente up brought Burnham in from third to make it 3-2 and put the tying and winning runs in scoring position.Then with the count at 3-2, Vicente lifted a blooper to left that dropped in front of three converging Rams, scoring Smith and Santos easily to give English the win.”Dani has been hot for us all season,” Caponigro said. “And we told the kids at the start of the seventh to play to the last out. And to their credit, they did just that.”Classical (7-11) had an early threat against Bulldog (14-4) starter Sam Hill in the first but left a pair of runners on. English then grabbed a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the inning as Smith singled, was sacrificed to second and scored on Vicente’s base hit.It stayed 1-0 into the third when the Rams broke the ice. Gauthier walked with one out and raced home when Terrero doubled up the gap in left-center to tie the game at 1-1.The Rams pushed into the lead in the fourth as Tyler Gauthier walked and later scored on a triple by No. 9 batter John Finnigan. A passed ball allowed Finnigan to cross for a 3-1 lead.After that, Kyle Gauthier practically stole the show, holding English to one hit over the second through fifth innings and then surviving a sixth where the Bulldogs made three very loud outs.”Kyle was mixing up his curveball and fastball very well,” Caponigro said. “He really had us off balance and guessing.”The Rams also had a chance to add some insurance runs in the sixth as Kyle Devin doubled and went to third on Terry Finnigan’s one-out single. But Hill dug deep and got the next two batters to set up the crazy finish.