PEABODY — Let’s just say the Peabody Little League 12-year-old All-Stars put on a clinic Sunday afternoon at Lt. Ross Park, defeating cross-city rival Peabody West, 7-0, in the District 16 tournament.
West came into the game with bats a blazing, having scored 22 runs in its first two games.
But this game belonged to Peabody starter Adam Grant (10 K). He was flat out dominant, no-hitting West and needing only 65 pitches to shut down the opposition.
He started the game with a bit of a hiccup, hitting West leadoff hitter Leo Pietrosanto. But after that, with the exception of a one-out walk to Cam Segee in the fifth inning, Grant was pure perfection.
He had a little help from his defense, which played flawlessly with no errors. Big plays were turned in by third baseman Declan Peterson, who snagged a highlight-reel worthy foul ball in foul territory during the sixth inning, and second baseman Logan Dresser, who made a back-pedaling, behind-the-back catch to end the third inning.
“Unbelievable. My pitcher – no-hitter,” said PLL Manager John Hoffman. “He threw the first game, too, and in 12 innings, has only allowed one run and he’s been here since we started this team and has been here since they were 10 years old. But we have plenty of aces on this team.”
“That pitcher, we know, is very good, so we know anything can happen when he’s going. We’ve seen them many times,” said PWLL Manager Phil Ragusa. “We play inter-league with them, so everyone is well aware that Adam is a really good pitcher. We didn’t hit today – that was it. Our field was fine and we pitched well and we didn’t make many errors, if any. Other than that, they just got the base hits.”
West starter Reid Ruffing went five strong innings, allowing three runs on five hits with six strikeouts and two walks.
Peabody came out smacking the ball, scoring all the runs it needed in the top of the first inning to lead, 2-0. Jack Houlihan (1-for-3, R) led off with a single and advanced to third on a double by Jaxson Hoffman (2-for-3, 2 R). Houlihan scored on a single by Grant (2-for-3, RBI, R), then Jaxson Hoffman scored on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Wes Weed (1-for-3, R).
Peabody bumped the lead to 3-0 in the fourth, the big hit being a bases-loaded RBI single from Chris Harris (1-for-3, RBI), scoring Seamus Park, who started the rally with a two-out single.
If West had any hopes of a comeback, they were dashed by Peabody, which piled on four more runs in the sixth to put the game out of reach — the big hits a two-run single through the left side from 11-year-old Caleb Dube (1-for-2, R) and a two-run single from Matthew Girliacco (2-for-3).
Ragusa said it was “tough” starting in a 2-0 hole, but he wasn’t worried.
“I feel like we’ve come back from those types of games before. I wasn’t really worried about that first inning, but yeah, it’s not good to get down too early,” he said. “But I feel like our team can come from something like that. I mean, it was 2-0 for a while, which was fine. I felt like we could come back from that in any inning, but when they piled on a couple at the end, that was rough.”
West dropped into the losers’ bracket, where it will face West Lynn Tuesday at MacArthur Park in an elimination game at 5:45 p.m. Peabody has a bit of break and will be back in action Wednesday against Wyoma.
Ragusa’s key to turning things around the rest of the way: get back to hitting.
“It’s as simple as that,” he said. “Every team is going to have good pitching – they all do. It’s going to come down to who’s putting the ball in play. That’s the way I see it.”
John Hoffman agreed that it’s all about hitting at this point of the tournament.
“We always need to hit and as long as they’re swinging the bats, we can get the hits.
They’ve been playing together for many years, so the chemistry is there,” Hoffman said.
