Danvers stuns Swampscott with rally, forces winner take all in Gallant finals

SALEM – It looked for all intents and purposes like Swampscott had both hands on the championship trophy at the 2010 Gallant Tournament on Monday at Forest River Park.And why not? The District 16 champs had a 3-0 lead and Ryan January on the mound to try to close it out after six stellar innings from Chris Murphy.Someone forgot to tell Danvers that, though, as it pulled off what can only be described as a miraculous comeback.Click here for a photo gallery.Four times, Danvers was down to its final strike, but it took advantage of three walks, a hit batter, an error and four wild pitches to plate four runs and steal away a 4-3 win to force a winner-take-all meeting tonight (6:30) between the two teams.”I guess we’re a one-inning team,” Danvers manager Dave Gotts joked afterwards. “It was just a matter of being patient at the plate. We saw (January) pitch the other night against Peabody and saw that he could be a little wild. He’s got a great and overpowering fastball but our patience won out at the end.”In the other dugout, the finish was a bitter pill for Swampscott to swallow after Murphy had pitched six innings of three-hit ball, striking out 12 and not walking a batter. Problem was, Swampscott could manage only four hits against Andrew Olszak as the Danvers hurler kept his team in the game.”We didn’t finish the job like we did in the first three games,” Swampscott manager Derek January said. “We had one of the best pitchers in the tournament on the mound in the seventh and didn’t close it out. That happens sometimes.”Nothing indicated that Danvers was going to pull off a comeback for the ages when the seventh inning began. Eddie Tylus led off with a single but January struck out the next two batters to put Swampscott on the brink of the title.Then the wackiness began.He got to a 3-2 count on Hunter Costa before issuing a walk. A wild pitch with Ryan McGinnis up scored Tylus to make it 3-1 and put Costa on second. Again January got to within a strike of ending things before losing McGinnis to put the tying run on.He then hit Dan Lynch with a 2-2 pitch to load the bases and bring Nate Sweeney to the plate. Once again, drama ruled as January barely missed on a 3-2 pitch to force home Costa to make it 3-2 and put the tying run on third.Mike Cravatis then hit a grounder to short that looked like it would finally end things but the ball was misplayed, scoring McGinnis to tie the game at 3-3 and bring Olszak to the dish.Once again, January was a strike away from getting out of trouble but he uncorked a wild pitch, scoring Lynch to give Danvers the shocking win.”We just weren’t aggressive in the seventh inning,” January said. “But that’s part of the game. They’re kids, not major leaguers out there making $20 million. You never know what to expect.”Pitching ruled early as both Olszak and Murphy put up zeroes over the first three innings. In the top of the fourth, Swampscott took advantage of an error to plate two runs.Leo Wile led off by reaching on that error and was sacrificed to second by Donnie Weisse. January then punched a triple into the right field corner to give Swampscott a 1-0 lead. Murphy followed with a hit to center that made it 2-0 but was thrown out after being caught taking a wide turn at first.Danvers, meanwhile, was having no such success against Murphy as he surrendered only three hits over the first six innings. Matt Hubauer gave Swampscott more insurance in the top of the seventh when he homered to left to make it 3-0, setting the stage for Danvers’ dramatics.