LYNN — It doesn’t get any better than a pair of crosstown baseball teams handing the ball to their aces in a battle against one another. Mix in the fact that Classical defeated St. Mary’s for last year’s Clancy Tournament championship and Friday’s opener between the Rams and Spartans had the makings to be a good one.
Behind a complete-game effort from starting pitcher David Barnard, the Rams earned a 4-3 win over the Spartans at Fraser Field. Classical led 4-1 before the Spartans scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh, but the late rally fell short.
“David pitched a great game,” Classical coach Mike Zukowski said. “He kept the pitch count under 100 and we’ve been working on that. The curveball got stronger as the game went on, which was nice to see. He got it down and in the strike zone. He made that adjustment and he pitched a great game.”
With the win Classical punched its ticket to Saturday’s (2) tournament championship game against North Reading. St. Mary’s plays English in the consolation (11).
St. Mary’s ace Bobby Alcock threw four innings and tallied seven strikeouts. Lee Pacheco took over in relief in the top of the fifth and tossed three scoreless innings.
“We didn’t help ourselves,” St. Mary’s coach Derek Dana said. “Bobby wasn’t locating too well and we didn’t pick him up, we didn’t play behind him. It’s disappointing but I take nothing away from Classical. (Barnard) did a great job.”
After three scoreless innings, Classical batted around and claimed the lead in the top of the fourth. With the bases loaded, Dayshon Anderson led a perfect suicide squeeze to plate Brett Bucklin with the game’s first run. AJ Luciano added a two-RBI single and Barnard walked with the bases loaded, bumping the Rams lead to 4-0.
“We were able to take advantage of some things,” Zukowski said. “We tried that play (suicide squeeze) earlier in the game and it didn’t work. I said ‘let’s go for it again.’ We didn’t have any success on Alcock in the first three innings. We tried it and that kind of opened things up.”
“We can’t let one inning get away from us,” Dana said. “We always talk about minimizing mistakes.”
In the bottom of the sixth, Josh Mateo was hit by a pitch and advanced to third base on Aedan Leydon’s single. Anthony Nikolakakis hit a RBI single, bringing Mateo home with St. Mary’s first run. John Mulready’s single gave the Spartans a chance to add more runs. Classical escaped with a 4-1 lead.
“We’ve been putting some good games together, competing at a high level” Dana said. “It’s not who we’re playing but how we’ve been playing. We’ve been focused, with a great mentality but I didn’t see a lot of that tonight.”
St. Mary’s put Classical on its heels in the bottom of the seventh. Anthony Bono led with a single and stole second. Colin Reddy plated Bono with a RBI single. Reddy scored on Kyle Ouellette’s RBI triple, making it a one-run game at 4-3. Barnard (five strikeouts) buckled down, fanned the final two batters and Classical held on.
“It was just a matter of time,” Zukowski said. “St. Mary’s saved it until the end. That scared us but we buckled down and got two huge strikeouts.”
