LYNN — If there’s one thing to take away from the summer Little League season, it’s that when it comes to the Peabody West and Lynnfield 9-year-old all-stars’ rivalry, anything can happen – and it usually does.
Saturday night at Reinfuss Field in the championship game of the Wyoma Sawyer Walsh tournament, the two teams were facing each other for the third time this summer. While West had won the previous two games — both by one run — Lynnfield was hopeful that the third time would be the charm. Holding a slim 6-5 lead going into the bottom of the sixth inning, Lynnfield was three outs away from hoisting the championship trophy. But West had other ideas, staging a two-out rally. The big hit was a walk-off two-run single by Connor Segee that capped off a 7-6 victory – on his 9th birthday no less.
“That was pretty cool that Connor got the walkoff,” Peabody Manager Shaun Coburn said. “What could be a better way to celebrate your birthday than getting the game-winning hit to win a championship?”
Will Sabia and Tyler DeAmelio led the offensive charge for Peabody. Sabia was 3-for-3 with two RBI and one run scored and DeAmelio was 2-for-3 with a double, two runs scored and one RBI. Segee started and pitched four innings, allowing three runs on six hits with seven strikeouts and three walks. DeAmelio pitched two innings. He gave up three runs on three hits with four strikeouts and one walk.
For Lynnfield, Ben O’Hara and Luca Mandell had big days at the plate. O’Hara was 3-for-3 with a double and two RBI. Mandell was 3-for-4 with two runs scored and one RBI. Nico Mandell started for Lynnfield, giving up five runs on five hits. He struck out five and walked three. O’Hara came on in relief and pitched three innings. He allowed two runs on four hits with five strikeouts and three walks.
West got the bats going early, jumping out to a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. DeAmelio, Gaetano Fodera (1-for-3, run) and Sabia came up with clutch RBI singles. Braydon Coburn (run, walk) bumped the lead to 4-0 when he scored on a wild pitch.
Lynnfield cut West’s lead to 4-3 in the third, the big hits being a bases-loaded RBI single by Nico Mandell (1-for-4) and an RBI single by O’Hara. John Kayola (1-for-3, 2 runs) was hit by a pitch and scored on a wild pitch.
Lynnfield took its first lead with three runs in the fifth. Kayola led off with a single and scored on Luca Mandell’s base hit to cut the deficit to 5-4. Dylan Delory followed with a walk. O’Hara singled Mandell home. Enzo Incerto (2 walks) was hit by a pitch, loading the bases for Marco Bevilacqua (RBI, walk), who drew a walk to make it 6-5 Lynnfield.
Jaxson Vallatini (1-for-3, run) and Jake Kalliandis (2 walks) also contributed to the Peabody cause. Nico Cavallo (run, 2 walks) pitched in for Lynnfield.
Coburn gave a shout out to Charlie Smerhurst (1-for-3, run), who pitched five innings of scoreless ball in Friday night’s 11-1 win over Winthrop.
“He was huge in our win against Winthrop,” Coburn said. “He’s one of our kids who doesn’t really pitch a lot, but he took some lessons and asked me if he could give it a shot, so that was a huge performance for us.”
“It was a real challenge going into Friday, Saturday and Sunday so we pitched some kids just 20 pitches and others who don’t normally pitch a lot,” said Coburn, adding the 7:30 p.m. championship game brought additional challenges due to the fact that West had a 5 p.m. game in the Stan Brown Tournament over in Danvers.
“We literally jumped in the car after the game and made it back to Wyoma just in time,” Coburn said.
On Sunday, Lynnfield Manager Bill Mandell learned that there will be another West-Lynnfield showdown after both teams won semifinal games to clinch their spots in Saturday’s championship game (TBD).
“I knew we might end up seeing them again,” he said. “Our goal for the summer was to challenge ourselves every day to become the best team we could by playing the best teams around. Peabody West has proven themselves to be the best so we look forward to another challenge against them. We’ve been battling them pretty close the last two years. I know a lot of the parents and the kids keep bumping into each other, so it’s developed into a nice little rivalry. A win Saturday would be the capstone of the summer.”
