DANVERS — Wild and bizarre are the only ways to describe the final inning of Saturday’s Stan Brown Jamboree 9-year-old Moulton Division game between Lynnfield and Peabody West, won by Lynnfield thanks to a walk-off bases-loaded, two-run single by John Kayola that capped a 7-6 win.
Lynnfield will now play Danvers National for the championship Tuesday at Moulton Field at Tapley Park at 5:30 p.m. Danvers defeated West Sunday, 14-4, to advance to the final.
“This is our kind of a story when we play Peabody West. Fortunately, tonight it kind of went one run in the right direction,” Lynnfield Manager Bill Mandell said. “John Kayola is a big-time player and always comes through for us. He’s playing with a lot of confidence so it was nice that he was the one to put it away for us.”
“Every single game with them has come down to one run,” West Manager Shaun Coburn said. “I was talking to the other coach and he said it comes down to whoever has the home field advantage and that’s what it came down to tonight.”
West had Lynnfield’s number this year, defeating Lynnfield in all three games they met this summer. Through the first five innings, Lynnfield pitchers Nico Mandell (2.2 IP, 0 hits, 6 strikeouts, 2 walks) and Ben O’Hara (2.1 IP, 3 hits, 5 strikeouts, 3 walks) had stymied West’s lineup from top to bottom, holding Peabody to one hit and one unearned run.
With a 5-1 lead, Lynnfield was three outs away from victory, but Peabody scored five unearned runs in the top of the sixth to lead 6-5.
“My team is all heart,” Coburn said. “Four or five times this summer we’ve come from behind and they didn’t give up. You gotta love the fight in them. It was a great baseball game.”
Lynnfield jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the third. Marco Bevilacqua (1-for-2, 2 runs) and Xander Maliawco (2-for-3, 2 runs) led off with back-to-back singles. Both runners advanced a base on a wild pitch. Matty Cavallo (2-for-4, RBI, run) plated Bevilacqua with a single. John Kayola (1-for-3, 2 RBI, run) and Luca Mandell (1-for-2, RBI) followed with walks. Next up was Nico Mandell (1-for-2), who brought Cavalla home on a fielder’s choice.
West made it a 3-1 game in the fifth. Brayden Creamer (2 runs) was hit by a pitch and scored on West’s first hit of the game, a double by Austin Burke (1-for-2, run). Burke took third on the throw and scored when the throw to third was off the mark, but the run was disallowed when the umpire ruled Burke had missed second base.
Lynnfield came right back and made it 5-1 in the bottom of the inning. Maliawco reached on an error and Cavallo then singled. Both scored on an infield error.
West’s Gaetano Fodera (1-for-3, run) singled to lead off the sixth. He advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored when Will Sabia’s (run) infield grounder was booted. Brayden Coburn (1-for-3, run) followed with a single, moving Sabia to third. Charlie Smethhurst was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Sabia scored on a walk to Jake Kallianidis (RBI) to cut West’s deficit to 5-3, then Coburn scored on an error. Louie Ippolito’s fielder’s choice plated Creamer, then a bases-loaded walk to Jackson Vallentini (RBI) brought Creamer home to make it 6-5, West.
Dylan Delory led off the bottom of the inning with a walk and advanced to second on a ground out by Enzo Incerto. Bevilaqua was hit, then Maliawco singled to load the bases for a red-hot Cavallo. But Cavallo never got a chance to play the hero due to an interference call on a Lynnfield coach who caught his popup in foul territory. Undaunted, Kayola came up clutch, ripping the first pitch into center field to end the game.
For West, Smethurst started and pitched five innings, while Tyler Deamelio and Vallentini pitched one-third inning each.
“Charlie (Smethurst) went deep. He’s one of the kids who normally doesn’t do a lot of pitching for us but he did a great job tonight,” Shaun Coburn said. “It’s been a long summer but it’s been a lot of fun.”
Cavallo earned the win for Lynnfield with one inning in relief of O’Hara, who came on after Nico Mandell was lifted in the third despite striking out the side in the second and two of West’s first three hitters in the third.
“It was the 50-pitch count. Nico was throwing great and we just wanted to make sure we can be competitive the rest of the tournament,” Shaun Mandell said.
For Lynnfield, Nico Cavallo shined at the plate, reaching base in all three at-bats.
