Peabody West falls in Little League state final

NORWOOD – Score one for the little guys?or in this case, Southboro’s big offense and stellar pitching.Proving their win on Friday over defending state champion Peabody West was no fluke, the Section Two champs used a seven-run second-inning explosion to rock arguably one of the state’s preeminent Little League programs en route to a 10-4 win and Southboro’s first state championship.”There was no way that we expected to beat a team as good as Peabody is like that,” Southboro manager Ken Trehub said. “We had never been past the sectionals before and we are a very small town and program that doesn’t even have its own high school. This is probably the most exciting team sports accomplishment in the history of the town.”It’s hard to point to a play in the second inning as a turning point, but on Sunday, that’s exactly what wound up being the case. Peabody was leading 2-1 with Southboro having the bases loaded and one out.West starter Traverse Briana struck out Andrew Warfield for what looked to be out No. 2, but Bobby Caproni was called for catcher’s interference upon appeal and it allowed Warfield to reach and Connor Henderson to score the tying run.From there, Southboro would add five more runs, the big blow being catcher David Wrin’s (4-for-4, three doubles) 2-run double that broke the game open.”That catcher’s interference call was huge,” Peabody manager Bob Sullivan said. “It kind of turned the whole game around. But there’s nothing you can do about it. We needed to get out of that inning and weren’t able to.”Peabody, which needed an 11-1 win over North Leominster on Saturday just to make the finals via a 3-way tiebreaker, got off to a dream start as Kyle Lynch drilled a 2-run homer on Matt Trehub’s second pitch of the game to make it 2-0. (Briana singled to lead off the game.)After that, the Southboro ace was on his game – something that didn’t come as a surprise to his manager/father.”We like to say in the dugout that for a 12-year-old, he’s about as cool and calm as they come,” Trehub said. “He was able to recover from that early homer and did a great job.”Another thing Southboro did well was work the count against Briana, forcing the Peabody starter to throw 73 pitches in his first two innings.”That is a very good team over there in Southboro,” Sullivan said. “They are very well coached and have tremendous pitching and hitting.”West didn’t lack for chances to get back in the game as it threatened in the third when Briana and Lynch singled to lead off. Following a fielder’s choice, Bobby Sullivan singled in Lynch but Ben Irvine was thrown out by Connor Henderson trying to score from second.Southboro pushed its lead to 10-3 in the bottom of the third before Peabody got a leadoff homer from Matt Tracy in the fourth. Marco Cappuccio followed with a one-out walk before Trehub got Steve Guttadauro to hit into a 1-6-3 double play to end the inning.”(Sunday) just wasn’t our day,” Sullivan said. “These kids never gave up and kept fighting and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”The only real question left was whether Trehub would be able to complete the game on the hill. And thanks once again to stellar defense behind him in the sixth, he needed only 86 pitches to polish off the title.”Our hitters did an outstanding job against a pitcher in Briana that we knew could shut us out if we didn’t bring our ‘A’ game,” Trehub said. “We took what opportunities we had and didn’t pass them up. I’m so proud of my kids. This is just amazing.”