ITEM FILE PHOTO
Aidan Dow pitched masterfully Saturday in the Lynn Babe Ruth 14-year-old all-star loss to Hingham/Hull.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — Lynn’s efforts to bring home a second straight state championship in Babe Ruth baseball competition came to an end Saturday at Fraser Field when the 14s, playing in the second half of a Massachusetts semifinal doubleheader, fell to Hingham/Hull, 3-2.
Lynn was vying to do what the 15-year-olds did last year — win a title and go onto the New England regionals. However, Hingham/Hull will have that that opportunity, as it defeated Plymouth Sunday in the state final, which was also played at Fraser.
It was a rare pitchers’ duel of southpaws Saturday, with Aidan Dow going for Lynn and Max Iorio throwing for Hingham. And until late in the game, Dow very efficiently shut Hingham down.
Lynn grabbed a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning when Jared DeFillipo walked, Jackson Nickoleau singled, and Mark Tobin got the run home with another base hit.
That was it for Lynn until the seventh inning.
Dow was nearly flawless after wiggling out of a jam in the first inning. After giving up a leadoff single to Harry Peters in the second, he set down seven in a row. He coasted into the fifth inning, giving up only a single and a walk from the second inning on.
However, he ran into trouble in the sixth, as he was reaching his 95-pitch limit. It started innocently enough with an infield hit to Joe Sylvester. But Sylvester ended up on third courtesy of two wild pitches and then Dow stumbled as he followed through on his next pitch, forcing the umpire to call a balk, and Sylvester trotted home with the tying run.
“Aidan pitched a great game,” said Lynn manager Dave Galeazzi. “He just kind of ran out of steam.”
Luke Linnehan, who had walked, advanced on the balk to third, and scored on a bases-loaded walk to Nolan Tiani, which gave Hingham the lead.
Andrew Luciano, who had come in to relieve Dow, got out of the inning without any further damage. However, Hingham made it 3-1 in the seventh inning when Iorio led off with an infield hit, stole second, took third on a fly ball to deep right field, and scored on Matt Lattiff’s sacrifice fly to right.
Lynn looked as if it might have something going in the seventh inning. Lucas Fritz led off with a double in the gap between center and left and went to third on another double by Mannion that looked as if it might be caught when it came off the bat.
One out later, DeFillipo got the second run home with a groundout to third on a play he came close to beating out. Nickoleau followed, and his harder grounder to third was gobbled up by Linnehan, who made the throw over to Peters at first for the final out.
“It was a great game,” said Galeazzi, who singled out his son, Nico, for making some crucial stops behind the plate on some of the curveballs that bounced in the first. “It was a fun game.
“We didn’t make any mental mistakes, or any errors,” said Galeazzi.
