GLOUCESTER — The dream summer is alive and well for the Peabody West Little League team, as the cardiac kids from the west side of town put together a weekend for the ages and came away with the Massachusetts Little League state championship trophy following a 6-5 win over Pittsfield American Sunday afternoon at Boudreau Field.
It’s been 12 years since the last time Peabody West took home a Little League state championship. That team went all the way to Williamsport, thanks to a Matt Hosman walk-off grand slam home run against Rhode Island secured the Tanners the New England Regional title.
“It was a tough start, but we’re grateful that we didn’t hang our heads and we kept fighting,” said Peabody West manager Mark Bettencourt. “I give a ton of credit to Pittsfield. They’re a great team, and they could easily be the ones representing Massachusetts in the regional. But when you play one game, anything can happen. Today we were lucky enough to play the better game.”
Just the fact that Peabody West was in Sunday’s championship game was a longshot a mere 12 hours earlier. Having lost the first two games of the round-robin tournament, Peabody West needed to both win and put together a big run differential Saturday night in order to be one of the top two teams. It did just that, beating Needham National, 8-0, to punch its ticket to the big game.
Jimmy DiCarlo led the offensive attack for Peabody West on Sunday, going 3-for-3 with a double and three RBI. Aiden Horgan went 1-for-3 with an RBI, while Gabe Casiano went 1-for-2 with an RBI. Brendan Kobierski added a hit in the win.
“We’re a team that strives on throwing strikes on the mound, playing good defense and getting timely hitting, and over the past few days the hitting hasn’t been there,” said Bettencourt. “After the second game, we just worked on making contact and putting the ball in play. Our goal was to force the other team to make plays, and we did that in both of the last two games.”
Cullen Pasterick did all the work on the mound, pitching a complete game and allowing five runs on eight hits with two strikeouts.
“Cullen pitched an unbelievable game,” said Bettencourt. “He threw strikes, mixed up his pitches and his speed, and he got some great defense behind him. It was a real grind-it-out effort.”
Pittsfield American got off to a strong start in this one, as Christian Barry led off the bottom of the first inning with a deep solo home run over the right field fence to make it 1-0. Cam Blake reached on an error after that, and two batters later he was knocked home via an RBI single from Kevin Konefal to give Pittsfield a 2-0 lead.
But, as has been the case all summer, Peabody West fought back.
It started with an infield single from Kobierski. After two walks loaded up the bases, Casiano stepped in and laced an RBI single into left field to make it a 2-1 game. After Pittsfield got a strikeout on the next batter, DiCarlo came up with the hit of the day when he roped a three-run double into the left-center field gap to give Peabody West the lead. Five pitches later, DiCarlo scored on a passed ball to put Peabody West up 5-2.
Pittsfield got one run back in the bottom of the second after scoring on a Peabody West throwing error, but Bettencourt came out to settle down his team before things got out of control — which has become a familiar theme this summer.
Peabody West added another run in the top of the fourth after Broughton kept the inning alive with a pinch-hit, two-out double. DiCarlo followed up with an infield single before Horgan smacked an RBI single down the left field line to make it 6-3.
But Pittsfield continued to threaten. After RBI singles from Barry and Jack Belafontaine made it 6-5, Pittsfield had the tying and go-ahead runs on base with one out. After a heads-up force-out play at third got the lead runner, DiCarlo made a great stab on a line-drive from Sebastian Herrera to end the inning and keep the lead in Peabody West’s hands.
Pasterick handled the rest from there, allowing just one hit over the final two innings. After a line-drive out right at DiCarlo ended the game, the dugout emptied and the party began.
Peabody West will enjoy this win for a day, but then it’s back to work in preparation for the New England Regional, which will take place from Aug. 8-14 at A. Bartlett Giamatti Little League Leadership Training Center in Bristol, Conn. Peabody West will now be known as Team Massachusetts.
“We’ll be out there Tuesday through Friday, and then we head down there Saturday,” said Bettencourt. “We’re just going to continue to do what got us here — work hard as a group with everyone giving 120 percent in practice, so that when the game comes there’s nothing to be nervous about. We say it all the time with the (Peabody High) football and baseball teams — “put the hay in the barn.” Once we know we’re ready, there’s nothing to be nervous about.”
