Wyoma earns date with WLA in City Series title round

LYNN – It will be the Wyoma Rangers against the West Lynn American Red Sox for the 2011 championship in the Lynn Little League City Series Monday.The championship thriller starts at 5:45 at Pine Hill (at Gallagher Playground) with Rangers ace Brendan Powicki likely on the mound against the Red Sox. Wyoma is 2-1 and West Lynn American undefeated, so Wyoma must take two straight games to win the cup. West Lynn American needs just one victory.Wyoma got into the finals Saturday thanks to its 9-8 victory over Jim Mitchell’s tough East Lynn Cardinals. Powicki slammed another home run and added a triple to lead the bats. East Lynn dramatically produced four runs in a wild last inning.Both outstanding teams produced three runs in the opening frame during perfect weather. Wyoma leadoff hitter Spencer DiVirgilio drew a walk. (Spencer’s father, Albie DiVirgilio Jr., a Lynn policeman, played on the 1981 City Series champion Orioles from Wyoma, and the Little Leaguer’s grandfather is former Lynn Mayor Al DiVirgilio, a top LL coach in his day.)Nick Perry followed with a bloop single. Powicki then poked a hard triple to right field for two runs, and scored when Dax Billingsley banged a hit. It was 3-0.The Cards answered with three tallies when Emilio Ferrand walked, Connor Gallant singled, and Antonio Felix got an RBI hit. Geovanny Morales got hit by a pitch. East Lynn pitcher Kevin Depena followed with a single that chased in two. It was 3-3.Wyoma began the second with hard wallops, but couldn’t trip up Trippy Worting, the 5-foot-10 right fielder who caught both long fly balls.East Lynn star hitters Gallant and Felix each slammed hits in the second, but were left stranded with Wyoma catcher David Furtado fielding well.Neither team scored in the third although Justin Parker had a two-bagger for Wyoma. For East Lynn, Depena’s clout was caught by excellent second baseman Travis “Super 8” Ryan (whose uniform number is 8). Pitcher DiVirgilio stuck out two Cards. It stood 3-3.Then DiVirgilio led off Wyoma’s fourth with a walk and rode home on Brendan Powicki’s home run for a 5-3 lead. The slugger hit 14 round-trippers during the regular season and remains red-hot in this Series. Then Billingsley walked, Ryan tripled, and an error later, it was 7-3.East Lynn battled back in the fourth when Justin Mayne walked and Emil Rossi blasted one to the fence in left, but it took a blooper hit by Ferrand to bring in Mayne. Now it was 7-4. And walking to the mound to replace pitcher DiVirgilio was Powicki. Batting now was Morales, who had already been hit by a stray pitch. This time, he got hit again, on a fastball, and rolled around the grass in pain before going to first base to load the sacks. Powicki reared back and fanned the next swinger to shut the door.Wyoma’s Brendan Donahue jump-started the fifth with an infield hit. Chris Baio rapped a hard bouncer to the mound with Cardinals hurler Depena making a great stop and throwing to Felix for a force at second. DiVirgilio singled. A sacrifice fly by Perry made it 8-4, and Powicki’s third hit created a seemingly safe 9-4 lead for the Rangers. Indeed, Powicki pitched a 1-2-3 fifth inning (all K’s).In the top of the sixth, Wyoma, managed by Steve Moccia, produced a double by solid hitter Furtado, but that was it. Up came East Lynn with its final chance.Perhaps, if a modern-day Ernest Lawrence Thayer had watched that final inning, he might have written: “But when Rossi’s chopper bounced into center, and Ferrand and Felix each drew walks, there was hope now as ‘Mighty Casey’ Geovanny Morales stepped into the box.”Morales delivered a three-run triple, and Depena drove him in with an RBI grounder to make it 9-8. Yet Billingsley came on to pitch, and with two out, he fanned the final East Lynn batter for the win.