Saugus 15s earn weekend split, stay alive in Babe Ruth tournament

SAUGUS – It’s going to take a miracle, but mathematically speaking, the 15-year-old Saugus Babe Ruth team is still alive in the Eastern Massachusetts State Tournament. After falling to 0-2 with an 8-1 setback against Newton on Saturday, the Saugus bats came alive in a 9-6 victory over Winchester on Sunday at World Series Park.Saugus won’t figure out its tournament fate until Tuesday evening, and ironically, it will be the team it beat that has a chance to advance Saugus to the championship round. If Winchester (0-2) can beat Newton (1-1) while scoring 15 runs (Newton can score however many), Saugus will advance. Although highly unlikely, Saugus manager Mark Mitchell is happy his team still has some kind of a chance.”We’re going to need a miracle, but it’s great that we are still alive,” said Mitchell. “We could already be eliminated from the tournament, so things obviously could be worse.”The optimism wasn’t quite so strong following Saturday’s loss, which was eerily similar to the opening loss to Peabody on Friday. In both contests, Saugus was right in the game until the later innings until a mixture of bad baserunning and lack of timely hitting cost the tournament hosts.Trailing 2-0 after four and a half innings to Newton, Saugus proceeded to leave two men in scoring position in the fifth before scoring its only run of the game in the sixth. Saugus had a chance to tack on a few more in the frame but an unassisted double play from Newton shortstop Christian Cox foiled things.After six impressive innings featuring five strikeouts and just two unearned runs, Saugus starter Jay Cub Lever was solved by the Newton offense in the seventh. The visitors batted around in the inning, scoring six runs to put things under wraps.The bats finally woke up for Saugus on Sunday as Mitchell changed up the lineup a bit to get the reserves some playing time, while welcoming back a key team member. Things started quickly for Saugus (the visiting team this time), as it put up a two-spot in the first.After Dan Cacciola and Jack Furey drew back-to-back walks to lead things off, Kyle Zabroski ripped a 2-2 double down the third baseline, scoring both runners. A fly out to left from Lever stranded two runners at inning’s end, but the solid inning left Saugus in a good frame of mind.Up 4-3 after five, Saugus put things away in the sixth. Victor DeMatteo walked with one out before an error in right field allowed Cacciola to reach. Ryan Roche, kept out with an elbow injury for both losses, entered as a pinch hitter and made his immediate impact with a two-run single.”He would normally be our starting left fielder, but he has been seeing a specialist for his elbow, which allows him to only pinch hit,” said Mitchell. “That hit was the turning point for us in the game and it’s great that he was able to come in and help the team out.” Saugus would score five in the inning.”Our offense finally started to get it going today,” explained Mitchell. “A win like this is great because we knew we could compete with these teams, and a loss like last night stings. So this is the high point of the tournament for us? so far.”In other tournament action over the weekend, Peabody won back-to-back games over Winchester on Saturday, 6-4, and over Newton the following day in 10 innings, 6-5. Peabody improved to 3-0 and locked up the number one seed for the American side of the bracket.Against Winchester, Mike Raymond earned the win on the mound with 13 strikeouts, while scattering just six hits. Offensively, Peabody got big games from David Hoar (two hits, two runs, RBI) and leadoff hitter John Oliveira (two hits, two runs).Sunday’s victory took a bit longer to secure, but was sweet nonetheless. After coughing up a three-run lead in the bottom of the seventh, Peabody got the go-ahead sacrifice fly from Brian Nerich in the top of the tenth.The extra inning triumph came with the help of a huge offensive performance from Hoar, who went 4-4 with a walk, increasing his tournament hi