Peabody West LL overwhelms Danvers National

TEWKSBURY – It was a power surge that many fans of Peabody West had been waiting to see.In the opening game of the Massachusetts Section Four tournament, the District 16 champions unleashed a 22-run, 23-hit barrage that left Danvers National in a complete state of shellshock following a 22-1, 5-inning West victory at Tewksbury on Wednesday.”We just hit the heck out of the ball,” Peabody West coach Ed Aiello said. “It makes the game a lot easier when you get grand slams and those multiple-run homers.”Peabody belted five long balls on Wednesday, including the aforementioned grand slam from Nick Lepore in the top of the first that set the tone for the evening.It was the 20th consecutive win for West in the sectionals dating back to a 2003 loss to the Saugus American team that reached the Little League World Series. In all, since 2001, Peabody is an astounding 20-2 in the sectional tournament including Wednesday’s win.”This team wants to go a long way,” Aiello said. “They’re not satisfied and they know there’s a lot more to accomplish.”Peabody set the tone from the outset as the District 15 champion Nats committed a crucial error in the top of the first that helped break the floodgates early.Anthony Iannuzzi reached on that one-out error and it proved to be very costly when Connor Corrigan was hit by a pitch and Zack Crawford followed with a single that made it 1-0. Jake Doherty followed with a walk that loaded the bases.Lepore promptly cleared them with his long ball over the right-center fence to make it 5-0 after a half-inning.”They gave us a little bit of a gift there,” Aiello said. “But you have to take advantage of those chances.”Jack Anderson’s solo homer off Corrigan in the bottom of the inning cut the lead to 5-1 and gave the impression that it could be a long day for the pitchers. As it turned out, it was the only damage Danvers could do.Back-to-back one-out singles from Nick Palma and Iannuzzi in the fourth put runners on the corners. Hunter Jacques drove home Palma with a single before Zack Crawford’s long homer to right made it 9-1, West.An inning later, Peabody would send an astounding 19 batters to the plate and scored 13 unearned runs on 13 hits and a pair of Danvers errors. Doherty had a 3-run homer before Christian Kukas and Corrigan added 2-run dingers later in the frame.