English baseball explodes late to push past Cambridge

LYNN – It took a while, longer than coach Joe Caponigro probably would have liked, but the offense that led Lynn English to 15 regular-season wins finally returned with a vengeance late in the Bulldogs’ Division 1 North first-round game against Cambridge on Saturday.Finding themselves in a 2-2 tie with the Falcons through four innings, the Bulldogs took the lead with three fifth-inning runs and then exploded for eight runs in the bottom of the eighth to pull away to a comfortable 13-2 win at Fraser Field.Click here for a photo gallery.English will take on No. 2 Lincoln-Sudbury today (4) at Feeley Field in Sudbury for a trip to the North semifinals.”The kids have been resilient all year and they did it again (Saturday),” Caponigro said. “We didn’t start very well in the first inning but we survived it.”The start Caponigro spoke of saw the Falcons load the bases with no outs to begin the game against English starter Sam Hill. But the senior dug deep and limited the damage to just one run to give his team a big boost.”Sammy has done that for us all year. He’s been a horse,” Caponigro said. “Holding them to just one in that first inning was a huge thing.”The Bulldogs (16-5) got that run back in the bottom of the first as Gabe Smith walked and later scored on Dani Vicente’s sacrifice fly to center. An inning later, English grabbed the lead as Ben Bowden, Pat Cullen and Smith all singled with two outs to make it 2-1 when Bowden scored.Cambridge did a little two-out damage of its own in the third when Mike Owens walked and came around on Luis Luciano’s base hit to deadlock the game at 2-2.Hill and his Falcon counterpart, Kevin Luciano, then kept the game tied until the fifth, when the Bulldogs took the lead for good. Smith reached for the third time to begin the inning. Junior Santos reached on an error and both moved up 90 feet on a Vicente sacrifice.Roberto Reyes grounded out to short before Brian Maynard tripled to dead center. This resulted in both runners scoring, as well as Maynard crossing the plate on a relay throw that sailed into the English dugout to make it 5-2 after five.”Brian really gave us a good at-bat there,” Caponigro said.And so it stayed until the eighth, when the Bulldogs finally exploded to put the game firmly out of reach.Bowden singled with one down to begin the rally. Cullen followed with a walk and Smith was plunked to load the bases.Reliever Chris Parise got Santos looking for the second out before Vicente unloaded the bases with a rocket shot double that made it 8-2, English. Reyes followed with a blast to center that missed being a homer by inches, scoring Vicente.Maynard was hit by a pitch and Brendan Carritte reached on a dropped third strike to extend the inning. Randale Lora forced in a run with a walk before Bowden emptied the bases for the second time in the inning with another double to make it 13-2.”We were finally able to get some good at-bats later in the game,” Caponigro said.