The Peabody Champions have been hot ever since getting into the North Shore Baseball League playoffs as the No. 8 seed, and that hot streak continued into this weekend as the Champions took down the No. 2 Rowley Nor’Easters by a score of 3-1 Saturday evening at Eiras Park in Rowley. With the win, the Champions now hold a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five semifinal series.
Tyler Leavitt earned the win on the mound for the Champions, tossing 5 1/3 innings and allowing just one run on three hits with four strikeouts. Brian Marshall (2/3 inning, one strikeout) got in some work out of the bullpen before Tyler Fitzgerald earned the save with one scoreless inning.
Derek Lyons (1-for-3, RBI) got the scoring started off in the top of the first inning with an RBI single, and Peabody was off and running. The Champions grabbed their other two runs in the second inning, one on a RBI walk from Jon Cahill (1-for-3) and the other on a RBI sacrifice fly from Mark Shorey (1-for-3). Mike Giardi (1-for-3) and Peter Messervy (1-for-3, run scored) also added hits in the win.
That’s all the Champions needed, as the Peabody pitching staff closed the door for the rest of the game.
The Champions aimed to continue their strong play into Sunday for Game 2, but the Nor’Easters had other ideas. After initially taking a 2-0 lead into the top of the seventh inning, Peabody gave up two runs in the seventh to send the game to extra innings before Rowley grabbed the game-winning run in the top of the 8th. With the Peabody loss, the series is now tied at 1-1.
Messervy (0-for-3) and Chad Martin (1-for-3) each had one RBI in the loss for Peabody, while Shorey (2-for-3), Lyons (2-for-4), Dave Ruggerio (3-for-4) and Chris Mansour (1-for-3) all added hits.
The Champions will play Game 3 of their best-of-five series Monday evening (5:30) at Eiras Park.
The No. 5 Swampscott Sox also got off to a great start of their semifinal series, earning a 12-7 win in a slugfest with the No. 3 Kingston Night Owls. The Sox, who had only put up eight runs total in their previous three games, were finally able to open things up on offense and take advantage of their opportunities.
The Sox came out with confidence in Game 2 on Sunday, but the Night Owls were in for a battle. After 10 hard-fought innings, Kingston was able to come away with the 7-4 victory to even up the series.
With the loss for Swampscott, the series now stands tied at 1-1.
The Sox will play Game 3 of their best-of-five series Monday night (8) at Haverhill Stadium.
