Peabody West reaches Section Four championship; Swampscott falls

WOBURN – For the fifth straight year, the Peabody West Little Leaguers are a win away from playing for a state championship.Running its win streak in sectional play to an astounding 15 straight games, Peabody will take on Stoneham on Monday (5:30) at Weafer Park in the championship game following weekend wins over North Andover West and Stoneham.Peabody’s opponent today might just have been District 16 champion Swampscott if not for a couple of defensive breakdowns at inopportune times against Stoneham and North Andover.”I think that we took a couple of gambles with our pitching and it paid off,” Peabody manager Bob Sullivan said.Tonight’s game will be a rematch of the 2008 sectional final, won by Peabody West at Harry Ball Field in Beverly. The last team to beat Peabody in a sectional game? Saugus American in 2003, when they did it twice at Wyoma en route to the Little League World Series.In fact, since 2001 Peabody is an amazing 19-3 in sectional competition.Sunday proved to be a breeze for Peabody as it and Stoneham already knew they would play in today’s title game after both won their games on Saturday. The Westerners belted four homers and were able to save their top arms – Traverse Briana and Bobby Sullivan – for the finals thanks to stellar pitching from Matt Tracy and Zack Crawford.”Matty pitched phenomenal,” Sullivan said. “And to get four homers from four different players was nice.”Swampscott, meanwhile, saw Ryan January turn in a stellar effort over the weekend, belting three home runs in the two games to bring his total to five in the sectional. But it was the mistakes at ill times that manager Mike LeBlanc lamented.”I really thought our defense was going to be better than it was here,” LeBlanc said. “We couldn’t throw a strike when we needed it.”Peabody clinched its spot in the finals thanks to a 12-8 win over North Andover that saw it jump out to a 7-0 lead in the top of the first en route to pounding out 13 hits.Things did get a little hairy for the District 15 champs in the late going as North Andover rallied in the last two innings before Steve Guttadauro came on to shut down a sixth-inning rally.Swampscott needed a win over Stoneham on Saturday to keep its hopes of advancing alive, and it got off to a good start, taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the third thanks to a mammoth solo shot by January and an RBI single with two outs from Christian Llorente.Stoneham halved the lead in the bottom of the third when Shane Rhonda hit a solo homer off starter Jack Fitzpatrick. It stayed 2-1 until the fifth, when the District 13 champions rocked the house.Brian Ghannam led off the inning with a single before leadoff batter Chris Lanzilli hit a 2-run shot to right to put his team ahead 3-2. Austin Masel was then hit by a pitch and pinch runner Nathan Cox went to third when Joe Egitto reached on an error.Ryan Smith singled home Cox, with Egitto also scoring when the ball was misplayed in the outfield to make it 5-2.Swampscott didn’t go down without a fight, though, as Chris Murphy singled and moved to third on a pair of passed balls. Leo Wile singled him home with a 2-out hit against reliever Smith.C.J. Howard followed with a single to put the tying runs on before Smith struck out Adrian Espinal to end the game.