SALEM — Swampscott and Peabody West, two of the best teams in District 16 squared off in Salem with the Swampscott getting the job done beating West 6-3 to be crowned 12-year-old Little League All-Stars District 16 Champions.
Swampscott got off to a fast start scoring three runs in the top of the first inning to put the pressure on West.
Two singles followed by two stolen bases from Jett Nichols and Gavin Cerrutti gave Swampscott runners in scoring position with Connor Mohan at the plate with two outs. Without feeling the pressure, Mohan ripped a two RBI double to left field for an early 2-0 lead.
Swampscott scored a third after an error in right field allowed Mohan to cross the plate.
“Our gameplan, we knew they played more games, so they were going to be watching the pitch count. We were trying to play the pitch count game and hope their pitcher threw a lot more. Luckily we were able to jump out ahead and I think that set the tone for the rest of the game,” Swampscott head coach Mike Brown said.
After Swampscott took the lead, they relied on its defense and starting pitcher Beckett Brown.
Brown pitched all six innings allowing just five hits while striking out three.
“We have a few aces on our team, but he’s our number one. He pitched three out of our four games,” Brown said. “He was pretty efficient and he had good defense behind them. He kept them unbalanced.”
Beckett only allowed one hit going into the fourth inning. A fourth inning where Peabody West mounted a comeback.
Austin Lohnes (single) and Joe Ryan (walk) got on base with two outs. WCleanup hitter Jed Sencabaugh waited for his pitch and hit a two RBI single to right field to cut the deficit to one (2-3).
Sencabaugh reached second on the throw to home, bringing up Danny Lancaster to the plate. Lancaster hit a single bringing home Sencabaugh to tie the game at three.
“We fell behind to Peabody and came back to win. [We] Came back and beat Winthrop. So we were down early, but there was definitely a belief that we’re still in this thing because we knew we had to come back so many times throughout the course of this thing that like we knew we weren’t dead yet,” Peabody West coach Mike McMahon said.
Unfortunately for West, the tie didn’t last long.
In the fifth inning, Swampscott added its fourth run thanks to Joe Ryan. Ryan reached first on a walk and advanced to second base following a walk from Dylan Arndt. Ryan stole second base on a wild pitch, and as the Peabody catcher tried to throw Ryan out at third the ball got past the third baseman, allowing Ryan to regain Swampscott’s lead.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, it was back to [Beckett] Brown dealing and his defense behind him making play after play. Swampscott retired six of the final seven batters to take home the District 16 title.
For McMahon, he had nothing but positive words for a “great” Swampscott side and his West squad that never quit.
“They [Swampscott] make every single play. I played them four times in two years, and I don’t know if I have seen them make more than one error. It’s crazy, they just make every play,” McMahon said. “I was proud of the way our kids dialed it back in, because they’re 12 years old. You have a first inning like that with a couple of errors it can have easily been 7-0 after the first.”
Swampscott will now compete in Sectionals with its next opponent and the date TBD.
