LYNN — The St. Mary’s baseball team fell short of the Catholic Central League crown but sealed a state tournament bid in a twin-bill at Fraser Field Saturday. St. Mary’s defeated Andover, 3-1, in the first game behind another dominant effort on the mound from freshman Aiven Cabral.
“Aiven went out again, pounded the strike zone and the kids played well behind him,” Spartans coach Derek Dana said. “The defense was fantastic. Aiven wanted the ball and he just kept coming. Andover’s a good team. That was outstanding. We had a couple of opportunities to score a few more runs and we didn’t, but three was enough in that first game.”
Cabral threw seven innings, allowed one earned run on two hits and struck out three. Cabral Terence Moynihan each had one RBI.
“Aiven just throws strikes,” Dana said. “He doesn’t lose his cool. That’s a 15-year-old kid going against St. John’s Prep and Andover in one week and winning both of them. I’m very proud of him for that.”
Austin Prep pitcher Cam Seguin kept the Spartans bats quiet in the back end of the doubleheader for a 4-1 Cougars win. With the victory, Austin Prep earned the CCL title.
Bobby Alcock took the mound in the second tilt and tossed five solid innings. But he walked in a pair of runs in the fourth and the Spartans didn’t recover.
“You have to make sure the mistakes are minimal,” Dana said. “We had a couple 0-2 base hits, you can’t give those up. You can’t walk four straight and expect to be successful. That being said, we’re still only chasing two and three runs the whole game. That’s not insurmountable. We have to battle much better in the batter’s box and hit the ball much harder than we did.”
After two scoreless innings, the Cougars struck through in the top of the third. Jonathan Gilbride led the inning with a double and scored on Colin Jaena’s RBI double. After a fly out, Alcock (six strikeouts, three earned runs) surrendered consecutive walks to Michael Barletta, Evan Blanco, Andrew Croteau and Michael Silva. The Cougars tacked on two runs on bases loaded walks (Gilbiride and Barletta scored), and grabbed a 3-0 lead.
St. Mary’s answered with its lone run in the bottom of the third. Colin Reddy (1-for-3, run) singled with two outs and stole second base. Kyle Ouellette (1-for-3, RBI) followed with a RBI single, making it a 3-1 game.
But St. Mary’s bats stalled the rest of the way. Seguin escaped a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the fifth and retired the last six batters in a row.
“Cam Seguin’s an excellent pitcher,” Dana said. “He battled. He kept on throwing strikes. He changed his speeds. When he wanted to pump it up a little bit, he did. He had a breaking ball. He kept us off balance. But we’ve faced good pitching all year. We have to be more competitive.”
Jake Elbeery plated Jaena with a RBI single in the top of the sixth to seal the scoring.
The road ahead doesn’t get any easier for the Spartans. St. Mary’s travels to Masconomet Monday (3:45), hosts Malden Catholic Tuesday (7) and hosts North Reading Friday (7) in the opening round of the Nipper Clancy Tournament.
“We want to keep learning how to win games,” Dana said. “We still have the Clancy Tournament to play. We have some good, young kids that are rising up. They’re finding themselves in the line-up. They’re getting better and better each day. We’re looking forward to competing every game we have left.”
