Swampscott baseball team loses heartbreaker to Danvers

DANVERS – It looked for the world like Swampscott’s Sean O’Brien might throw a no hitter against Danvers on Friday at Twi Field ? and come out as the losing pitcher in the game.The Falcons had put an unearned run on the board in the first inning and were held hitless for six innings by O’Brien before Swampscott dramatically rallied to tie with two outs in the seventh.Danvers, though, showed its resilience as it broke up the no-hitter with two down in the bottom of the seventh and then got a walk-off single from Joe Strangie to take a 2-1 win.”We would have liked to end it with the third out in the top of the seventh,” Danvers coach Roger Day said.”But it was a great baseball game and you hate to see either team lose a game like this was.”It was a pitchers duel in every sense of the term as O’Brien was matched at every turn by Danvers sophomore Ray Arocho, who held the Big Blue to only one hit over his seven innings of work.”Sean showed how much he has grown with a year of experience and Arocho was just a bulldog for them,” Swampscott coach T.J. Baril said.”He threw some nice pitches.”The Falcons (3-0) were in position to get one of the weirdest wins in the program’s history thanks to Arocho scoring after an error in the first inning. From there, O’Brien would retire 18 of the next 20 Falcons he faced.The problem for Swampscott was that Arocho was just as brilliant.After stranding a runner at third in the first, the sophomore southpaw allowed only two baserunners from the second through sixth innings.”Ray pitched great for us,” Day said. “He was tremendous. And so was O’Brien for them.”Swampscott found a little life with one out in the seventh when Gino Cresta drew a walk. Matt Videtta followed with a two out base on balls before Robert Serino, who had the Big Blue’s lone hit back in the third, lifted a high pop-up in the infield.Arocho had a bead on it but the wind drifted it towards first where Zach Ryan saw it bounce off his glove and drop in, allowing Cresta to score the tying run.O’Brien returned to the mound in the seventh and retired the first two batters with ease before Greg Little broke up the no-no with a sharp single to left.He followed with a steal of second and moved to third when Dan Connors reached on an error at short.A.J. Couto was intentionally walked to load the bases for No. 9 batter Strangie, who reached out and poked a curve ball just over Cresta’s head at second base to plate Little with the winning run.