Sullivan pitches, hits Peabody West to win in state final opener

NORWOOD – The reigning New England regional champions look to have all the pieces in place for a return engagement in Bristol, CT.On Thursday at Kelley Field, Peabody West opened defense of its Massachusetts state championship by flashing all the tools that got it to a fifth straight berth in the finals. The District 15 champs didn’t commit an error and Bobby Sullivan needed only 82 pitches to twirl a two-hitter on the mound while adding a 3-run homer in the first inning that was all the offense his club needed in a 5-1 win over Newton West.”Winning the first game is huge in a tournament like this,” Peabody manager Bob Sullivan said. “It really is big. You have to win this game to be in position of where you want to be.”Peabody now sits in prime position to return to the state championship game once again. It takes on Section Two champion Southboro today (4:45) with a win all but guaranteeing it a spot in Sunday’s title game.On Thursday, it was all about the man on the hill for West.Of his 82 pitches, Sullivan threw 52 of them for strikes and faced only one spot of bother in the game. It came in the top of the fifth with Peabody leading 4-1 and Sullivan having thrown 47 pitches.Little League pitching rules allow for a pitcher to throw 50 or fewer pitches in a game and be eligible to return to the mound with two days’ rest. That would have allowed Sullivan to return on Sunday if his team was to reach the finals.The quandary for his father and manager was that Newton was still within shouting distance.”(Assistant coach) Steve (Guttadauro) and I really went back and forth on that one,” Sullivan said. “But we decided that we had to let Bobby go because we had to win.”The younger Sullivan made the decision pay off handsomely as he pitched out of trouble, striking out Logan Lancelotti-Stark with two runners in scoring position to end the inning.Ironically, things didn’t start off perfectly for Sullivan and Peabody as Newton’s Scott Kelly drilled a solo homer with two outs in the top of the first to give his club a quick 1-0 lead.That gap didn’t last long, however, as Peabody went right to work in its half of the first.Traverse Briana and Kyle Lynch led off with singles. Briana was erased on Ben Irvine’s fielder’s choice before Sullivan gained a little revenge on his counterpart, taking Kelly deep to center for a 3-run jack and a 3-1 lead.”Bobby’s homer there was huge,” Sullivan said. “Especially when it was pitcher-against-pitcher. To come back and get one off him was nice to see.”Peabody added another run in the bottom of the second when Guttadauro drew a two-out walk, went to second on a wild pitch and came home on a Briana single to left.By this point, Sullivan had it fully on cruise control. He needed only three pitches in the third and nine more in the fourth to strike out the side.Peabody would salt the game away in the bottom of the fifth when Matt Tracy belted his fourth homer in the last three games, this one a solo shot to left that made it 5-1. Sullivan then went out and induced three ground ball outs to end the game.”We hit a lot of balls hard, but they seemed to be right at people,” Sullivan said. “But Matty’s homer was huge, because it gave us that little bit more of insurance.”