Roundup: Swampscott baseball defeats English

In a game marked by solid pitching performances, the Swampscott baseball team defeated English, 3-1, at Fraser Field on Sunday night.”We put the ball in play, but Swampscott made the plays,” English coach Joe Caponigro said.Swampscott’s workhorse junior pitcher, Sean O’Brien, was in command throughout, striking out six in a complete-game two-hitter in a Northeastern Conference crossover game.Meanwhile, English pitcher Matt Merritt pitched pretty well himself. Merritt allowed three runs (one earned) on six hits. He struck out nine.”Most of them were swinging,” Caponigro said of Merritt’s strikeouts. “He had a good fastball and curveball rolling. He used his changeup as well. He had a very strong game. He deserved a better fate.”The Big Blue now stand at 7-5 (5-4 NEC South) while English slipped to 3-8.”We bounced back nicely from a tough loss to Classical on Friday night. We shot ourselves in the foot in that one but made all the plays we had to tonight,” said Swampscott coach T.J. Baril.Junior catcher Matt Videtta threw out two Bulldogs attempting to steal and center fielder Frank Legere made a sliding catch in the gap to take away extra bases.O’Brien laced an RBI triple in the third inning, Mike Walsh had a sacrifice fly and the third Swampscott run scored on an error.Randale Lora and Ben Bowden each had a hit for English.Lynnfield 6, Ipswich 2At Ipswich, Lynnfield junior Chris Dehville pitched as though he had someplace else to be. Dehville needed less than two hours to dispatch Ipswich on Saturday afternoon. Dehville spaced six hits and struck out seven while allowing only a single earned run.”Chris did a terrific job and we needed that because we didn’t really hit the ball all that well,” said coach John O’Brien, whose team now stands at 7-3 (3-3 CAL). “Chris really kept them off balance. He was hitting his spots and the guys played well behind him.”Down by a run, the Pioneers forged ahead with two runs in the top of the fourth. Rick Berardino singled, stole second and eventually scored on Dylan Costa’s fielder’s choice. Craig Anderson followed with a go-ahead single, scoring Chris Klotzbier.Peter Franchi provided the game-winning run with a solo home run in the fifth. A.J. Sartorelli (base hit) and John Festa (sacrifice fly) drove in runs in the sixth and Costa collected his second RBI of the day with a base hit in the seventh. Berardino finished with two hits, two stolen bases and two runs scored.”We have some momentum now and we’re looking to keep things going. Our captains (Berardino, Klotzbier and Franchi) are doing a great job leading the way,” said O’Brien. Lynnfield plays at Georgetown Tuesday.Spellman 7, Fenwick 3At Peabody, Jake Bugler went 1-for-3 and scored twice for the Crusaders (9-4). Mike LaChance (1-for-3) also scored for Fenwick. Gianni Esposito (2-2), Michael Cipriani (1-2) and Brian Burke (1-1) each drove in a run.Beverly 8, Danvers 7At Beverly, the Panthers (8-4) trailed 3-0 in the second inning before rallying to tie it on Pat Wilson’s RBI single, Anthony DiOrio’s RBI double, and an error that scored a run. Beverly got five more runs in the fifth to go up 8-3 as Andy Brown hit an RBI single, Harry Brown and Alex Toomey walked with the bases loaded and Wilson hit a two-run double. Danvers made it 8-6 in the sixth and then, in the seventh, the Falcons’ Matt Gikas hit a solo homer with one out. However, Beverly pitcher Chris Mitchell got the next two batters for the complete-game win.TRACKBishop Fenwick’s boys and girls teams both nabbed second place behind double champion Cardinal Spellman in Saturday’s Catholic Central League Freshman-Sophomore Meet at Archbishop Williams.The Crusader girls amassed 86.5 points, led by sophomore Maggie Lepley of Lynn. She qualified for the State Meet while winning the javelin (94-3/4) and finished second in the shot put (27-3), both personal bests. Becky Mercurio won the 400 (65.2) and placed third in the long jump (15-3.5) while Arianna Maida placed second in both the