ITEM FILE PHOTO
Classical’s Andrew Moccia helped lift the Rams to a first-round win in the Division 2 North tournament on Thursday.
By GORDON VINCENT
WAKEFIELD — Win-loss records and tournament seedings can be useful tools, but they don’t measure courage, determination and desire.
The 15th-seeded Lynn Classical baseball team pulled off a shocking upset by knocking off second-ranked Wakefield, 5-4, in the first round of the Division 2 North tournament on Thursday at Walsh Field.
The win for the Rams (11-10) wasn’t a fluke. Classical got a yeoman performance on the mound from Matt Stanley, who gave up 11 hits and a walk but got important outs when he had to. Offensively, the Rams erupted for all five of their runs in the fifth inning off Wakefield ace Corey Imbriano.
“We’ve had a good feeling about this team all year,” Classical coach Mike Zukowski said. “We felt at the beginning of the season like we had a five or six-loss team, then we went through a rough stretch in the middle. But we were coming off a good showing in the Clancy Tournament with good games against St. Mary’s and then English to make it into the tournament.”
Through injuries to other pitchers, Stanley has emerged as the Rams’ ace. He threw a complete game win over English on Sunday and followed it up with yesterday’s victory over a Wakefield (17-3) team that won the vaunted Middlesex League‘s Freedom Division and until a late-season loss to Austin Prep was under consideration for a berth in the Super 8 tournament.
“He (Stanley) kept the ball down and he got some big outs with runners on base,” Zukowski said. “Their first four or five guys in the lineup can mash the ball.”
Indeed, Wakefield’s first three batters of the game reached base and two of them scored. Imbriano led off the bottom of the first inning with an infield hit, stole second, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Tim Hurley. A bloop single by Paul McGunigle put Hurley in scoring position for Mike Guanci, who drove in Wakefield’s second run with a single to left.
Neither team scored again until Classical’s big fifth inning. David Barnard led off with a single and went to third when Stanley blasted a double to the gap in right-center. One out later, Andrew Moccia hit a grounder to second base. Wakefield’s Kevin DeLeary initially looked home, then threw to first, but the ball slipped out of his hand. Barnard scored, Stanley took third and Moccia was safe at first. After Moccia stole second. Tyler Way lifted a popup down the first base line. DeLeary called off first baseman Andrew Auld, but the ball popped out of DeLeary’s glove, allowing Stanley to score and Moccia to advance to third.
After Way stole second, Matt Lauria put the Rams ahead to stay with a single to left that scored both Moccia and Way. Brandon Devin followed with a single and Herbie Newton brought in Lauria with a single to left to score Lauria to give Classical a 5-2 lead.
Stanley pitched around a two-out single in the fifth by McGunigle and a leadoff double in the sixth by Auld, who was later thrown out by Lauria trying to steal third base with one out and a left-handed hitter at the plate.
Will Shea led off the bottom of the seventh with a single to center and one out later, Hurley followed with his third hit of the day, a single to left. Stanley got a huge second out when he induced a popout to shortstop from McGunigle, but Matt Mercurio walked to load the bases.
Auld followed with a sharp single to right-center that brought in Shea and Hurley to close Wakefield’s deficit to one run, with pinch-runner David Melanson as the potential tying run on second base. Guanci then hit a grounder to Moccia in the hole at shortstop. Moccia threw to third, and Devin applied the tag for the last out of the game after Melanson rounded the base too far.
“We played some good, head’s up baseball, which you saw on that last play,” Zukowski said. “(Moccia) knew he didn’t have a play anywhere else, so he threw to third and fortunately we were able to get a big out to end the game.”
The Rams face another Middlesex League foe, Burlington, in the quarterfinals, at a day, site and time to be determined by the MIAA.
