Lynn Babe Ruth 15s see season end against Plymouth in EMass title game

PLYMOUTH – Nobody wants to blame losses on umpiring. And as much as Lynn Babe Ruth 15s manager Mike Mageary might have wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to do it either.”No excuses,” he said after Lynn lost to Plymouth, 4-3, in the EMass championship game Saturday. “Their pitcher (Cody Holmes) threw a great game, and we didn’t really get our bats going against him until late.”But ?The game turned on a pivotal play in the top of the seventh. Plymouth, up 3-1 at the time, put its first two runners on base – one on an infield hit that took a weird hop at the feet of shortstop Kyle Devin; and the other on a walk.With everybody in the ballpark expecting Plymouth’s Connor Folletts to sacrifice both runners along, pitcher Matt Merritt caught the lead runner, Jamie Delano, cheating toward third and had him picked off. He threw to third baseman Chris Coito, who ran Delano back to second and tossed to Devin for what appeared to be an easy tag.But it wasn’t. The umpire ruled that Delano got back in time.That set in motion a chain of events that would prove to be the ballgame. On the very next pitch, Folletts did, indeed, sacrifice. First baseman Ben Bowden – who had homered an inning earlier to put Lynn on the board, and whose homer Thursday propelled Lynn into the final – charged up the line, picked up the bunt and threw to Coito, who had stayed home to cover third. However, the throw went into left field, and that allowed Delano to score the fourth run.Mageary wouldn’t comment on the call, but it was clear that nobody on the Lynn side agreed with it.That left runners on second and third with none out, and with Plymouth poised to break the game wide open. After an intentional walk, Plymouth’s John Myette hit a grounder to Matt Dube at second, who fired to Brendan Mageary behind the plate for one; with Mageary getting it to Bowden at first to complete the crucial double play. Merritt fanned Dan West to get out of the jam with only one run.But that one run proved to be enough. Just enough. Chris Narducci led off the bottom of the seventh with a walk, and after Holmes struck out the next two batters (he had eight strikeouts overall), pinch-hitter Joe Rose launched one over the left-field fence for a two-run homer. However, Holmes fanned the final Lynn batter to preserve the win.”It was a heartbreaker,” said Mageary, “but we didn’t quit. That’s the one thing about this team from Day One. We hung in there, and we fought until the end.”Their pitcher (Holmes) ? between high school and Babe Ruth he didn’t lose a game. He’s the real deal. Great pitcher. We just didn’t hit him until late in the game ? and they hit the ball well.”Plymouth scratched a run across in the first inning, and got two more in the fifth on David Murphy’s two-run homer. Bowden, a terror both on the mound and at the plate throughout the summer, parked a solo shot far over the right field fence in the bottom of the sixth to make it a two-run game.NOTES: This is the second year in a row that Holmes has eliminated a Lynn-area Babe Ruth team from post-season play. Last year, Holmes pitched the second end of a doubleheader to beat Saugus for the EMass crown during the 14-year-old tournament ? After the game, the Lynn players passed the hat among the Lynn contingent for the Salim Fort relief fund, and raised $500 ? A large crowd from Lynn attended the game, prompting a Plymouth official to comment that the number of people who braved gridlock Cape Cod traffic to travel down to Siever Field far exceeded fans from his own town ? Saturday’s defeat was Lynn’s only loss in the post-season as it swept to a District 1 title, won all three games in its pool during the states, and won the semifinal ? The last time Lynn played in a tournament in Plymouth, in 2006, the 14-year-olds won the state tournament. Several eventual Item all-stars were on that team.