Lynnfield baseball falls to North Reading

NORTH READING – After starting the season 1-4, including a stunning loss to Lynnfield, the North Reading baseball team has found its groove at just the right time.The Hornets showed that form on Tuesday against the Pioneers, pounding out 19 hits in steaming to a 12-1 win that moved coach Frank Carey’s team one win from tourney qualification.”It took us a while to get things together, but we’re playing pretty well right now,” said Carey, a Lynn native.It was a stunning display of offense that came out of left field seemingly as the Hornets (9-8) had scored double-digit runs in only one game this season.”We just came out flat,” Lynnfield coach John O’Brien said. “But they also hit the ball and you can’t take anything away from them for that.”The hit parade began almost immediately for North Reading against Pioneer starter Ben Kendrew.Riley Warnock set the tone with a triple to left to begin the bottom of the first. Designated hitter Ben Harrow followed with an RBI single. A one-out double from Chris Kavanagh was followed by a 2-run single from catcher Keith Linnane for a 3-0 lead after one.In the teams’ first meeting, the Hornets actually had a 6-0 lead before the Pioneers stormed back to swipe away a 7-6 win. On Tuesday, Warnock wasn’t going to let his team suffer that fate again.Throwing a steady diet of off-speed pitches, Warnock got Lynnfield’s lineup to go fishing on several occasions.”Riley pitched a great game,” Carey said. “The game plan was to throw them a lot of off-speed pitches because they are such a good fastball hitting team.”The hits kept on coming in the second for North Reading as five of them led to three more runs and knocked Kendrew from the game. Harrow provided the big hit as his 2-run single increased the lead to 5-0.Chris Deheulle took over for Kendrew but wasn’t any more fortunate as the Hornets added two more runs on four hits and an error in the third.”When you miss spots against that team, they’re going to hurt you,” O’Brien said.North Reading added another run in the fourth on Kyle Boucher’s third hit of the game before the Pioneers finally pushed across a run in the fifth but left the bases loaded.Lynnfield would load the bases again in the sixth but came away empty when Warnock got an inning-ending double play. The Hornets would close the scoring with three runs in the bottom half.”Our defense was superb but the key was that we got the timely hits that we haven’t been getting this season,” Carey said.