Southboro pushes Peabody West to brink of elimination

NORWOOD – Murphy’s Law was certainly on full display for the Peabody West Little League team on Friday at Kelley Field.It seemed that anything that could go wrong did go wrong for Peabody against Southboro. Playing one of their worst games in recent memory, the Westerners committed four errors and were held to just three hits in a 10-0 loss.Peabody now needs to win its game today (4:45) against North Leominster to likely assure itself of a spot in Sunday’s final against Southboro. A loss today would with all probability end Peabody’s quest for a second straight state title.”We were bound to drop a game sometime,” Peabody manager Bob Sullivan said. “The good thing is that it doesn’t knock us out of the tournament. We can still come back and win (today) and get to the finals.”Sullivan rolled the dice and gave the ball to Zack Crawford to start the game, opting to keep ace Traverse Briana in the wings. The move would wind up backfiring as Crawford did not record an out.Nolan Kessinger, who reached all five of his trips to the dish, walked and went to second when Kyle Hill reached on an error. Matt Trehub’s single loaded the bases for Jack Harlan, who singled home Kessinger for a 1-0 lead.Kevin Haley drew a walk that forced in Hill for a 2-0 lead and brought Sullivan out to the mound and Briana in from short to try and put out the fire, which he did with a pair of strikeouts and a ground out.Harlan got the start for Southboro and he worked a 1-2-3 first on only 10 pitches, giving his teammates a chance to pad their lead in the second.Briana started the inning by walking Mike Morhardt and then departed moments later in favor of Ben Irvine. Kessinger singled on Irvine’s second pitch, allowing Morhardt to score for a 3-0 lead.Gavin Borden followed with a hit that made it 4-0 before Haley doubled home two more runs to increase the gap to 6-0.”We were hoping to be able to steal the game with our pitching but it didn’t work out that way,” Sullivan said.Harlan worked another perfect second before Peabody finally put together a threat in the third as Crawford reached on an error and Steve Guttadauro singled with one out. But on a day when nothing was going right for Peabody, Briana hit a grounder to short that resulted in Matt Trehub tagging Crawford and Guttadauro for an unassisted inning-ending double play.Peabody would have an even better chance to make it a game in the fourth when Kyle Lynch and Irvine singled to lead off. Haley struck out the next two before walking pinch hitter Matt Tracy to load the bases.Southboro then went to Mothardt on the mound and he got Marco Cappuccio on a sharp liner to right to end the inning.The section two champs then added two runs in both the fifth and sixth innings to polish off their win.”We certainly didn’t expect this kind of result,” Southboro manager Ken Trehub said. “Peabody is a very good team and I know they will be back. They are well coached?We were able to take advantage of some early chances.”