Cranston Western earns LLWS berth with win over Bedford, N.H.

Jacob Marrocco
Posted 8/18/15

After his team’s biggest win of the season on Sunday, Cranston Western Little League manager Gary Bucci said the best thing that happened to them all year was actually a loss.

The loss in …

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Cranston Western earns LLWS berth with win over Bedford, N.H.

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After his team’s biggest win of the season on Sunday, Cranston Western Little League manager Gary Bucci said the best thing that happened to them all year was actually a loss.

The loss in question was their 7-2 defeat at the hands of Lincoln during the state tournament. It was the first time all season CWLL didn’t have a lead at any point in any game.

“That was a wake-up call,” Bucci said. “And I think these kids’ll tell you that was important. They did not know how to process that, and that was very helpful to us.”

The boys in teal responded by running the table in the losers’ bracket at States and defeating Lincoln twice, both times by scores of 14-0, to earn a berth in the New England Regionals in Bristol, Conn.

In Bristol, Cranston Western experienced a similar storyline. In its opening game, Waterford, Conn., edged CWLL, 3-2, to knock it down to the losers’ bracket once again. Having been in that situation before, CWLL started to reel off wins. The Rhode Island representative started with an 11-4 drubbing of Newton, Mass., on Thursday.

On Friday, it was faced with a rematch against Connecticut. The final score was the same, but the winner this time was CWLL with a David Marchetti walk-off home run in the seventh inning.

Rhode Island then played South Burlington, Vt., on Saturday with a championship game berth on the line. A five-run first inning provided an early pad for pitcher Nick Mason. Mason shut down the opposition en route to a 7-1 win and a tilt with Bedford, N.H., waiting on Sunday. Bedford to that point had outscored its opposition 27-6 in two games, but had not played since Thursday.

“Each [game] was testing us,” Bucci said. “And we started to get stronger and stronger, emotionally and physically. I think playing every day really helped us.”

CWLL again did the improbable, jumping on Bedford early and often to capture a 10-4 victory and a berth in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.

It looked like the contest might be a close one after a scoreless first inning, as each team got a runner in scoring position but failed to bring him home.

CWLL grabbed the early lead in the second frame. Dylan Demers got the offense going with a double into the left-centerfield gap. Jason Patalano then delivered on a first-pitch single to left field that plated Demers for the first run of the game.

CWLL starter Cam Adamec kept Bedford at bay in the second, cruising with just 27 total pitches. His team would repay him with an explosive third inning as their preparation for lefty Michael Pratte paid off.

“[Coach Larry Lepore] was drenched, I was drenched, we brought the [left-handed] screens up about 20 feet, because we’re both left-handers, and we threw as hard as we could throw and it showed,” Bucci said about readying his team to face the left-handed Pratte. “They were pulling the ball as opposed to even being late on it. They weren’t afraid of him. We’re a good fastball hitting team.”

Marchetti reached on a fielder’s choice with one out before Jared Olson grounded a base hit into left field. Adamec got plunked on a 2-2 count to load up the bases for CWLL. Mason then stepped up, already with one grand slam in the books during the tournament.

“Before I went in [to the batter’s box] and the other team called timeout, Coach [Bucci] talked to me and he said the crowd was so loud and he didn’t want me to let them down,” Mason said.

Mason didn’t let them down. He unloaded on a 2-2 pitch and sent it deep into the trees in left field to balloon CWLL’s lead to 5-0.

Dylan Demers tacked on another when he went back-to-back with Mason, crushing a home run of his own to nearly the same spot. Kyle Lavigne took over on the mound for Pratte after Demers’ round-tripper.

CWLL’s defense struggled in the bottom half of the inning, allowing Bedford to chip away. With Pratte on second after a fielder’s choice and wild pitch, Lavigne hit a grounder to third. Mason, who had made some stellar plays throughout the regional, allowed the ball to get under his glove and skirt into left field, scoring Pratte. Lavigne reached second on the throw home.

Bedford tacked on another when Matthew Landry singled to centerfield, but Jake Bender couldn’t pick the ball up cleanly and Lavigne came home. Adamec would eventually load the bases with two outs, but did force Austin Bequeath to ground out to end the threat. “Larry works with the pitchers and he does a remarkable job,” Bucci said. “We have five kids that we feel very confident in throwing out there. We’re deep in pitching and that’s how we survive. You don’t survive in the losers’ bracket with no pitching.”

With momentum potentially swinging after Bedford grabbed two runs, CWLL came back up looking to answer and did so as quickly as it could. Olson lifted the first pitch he saw over the left field wall for CWLL’s third home run of the day, putting it ahead 7-2.

Adamec would give up one more unearned run in the fourth. Zach Fletcher reached on a dropped fly ball in left field, eventually scoring on Kyle Lavigne’s single. Adamec forced the final batter he could face, Emet Baker, to pop out to shortstop to end the fourth. The Cranston lefty went four innings with four strikeouts and just one earned run allowed.

Olson took the ball for the fifth inning and got the first out before walking T.J. Crowley on a full count. An errant pickoff throw from Marchetti behind the plate pushed Crowley to second, and he got to third on Alex Lobdell’s fielder’s choice. Pinch-hitter Ethan St. Hilaire came up big, unleashing an RBI triple to deep right field, cutting the deficit to 3.

With the tying run on deck, Dylan Demers answered with a clutch play of his own at shortstop. Demers fell to his knees on a ground ball and fired on to Adamec at first for the final out of the inning.

Bedford was creeping closer, and CWLL needed a decisive blow in the seventh inning to stymie the comeback for good. Mason and Dylan Demers each reached on errors at shortstop with one out. After Patalano nearly lined into a double play at first, Mike Bogosian blooped a single that fell between four players in centerfield to load the bases.

Bender dug in and made up for his error in electric fashion, sending a bases-clearing double into the right-centerfield gap to push the Cranston lead back out to six runs, 10-4.

“I was just thinking it was 7-4 at that time and they had one more chance because it was the top of the sixth,” Bender said of his double, which Bucci also called “huge.”

Bedford didn’t have an answer during its final at-bats. Pratte walked with one out and moved to second base on an error, but Olson locked in. He forced Lavigne to fly out and Baker to ground out softly to first to end the game and begin the celebration.

“It felt great to hit a home run and to close the game,” Olson said.

“I was really nervous in the dugout, I thought I was gonna blow it but I didn’t,” Olson added as the room erupted in laughs.

CWLL will have a few days off before facing its next challenge in Williamsport. Cranston Western is set for a matchup with Northwood, S.C., on Friday at 4 p.m.

“We’re going along for the ride,” Bucci said. “We got a couple days before we play. I’m sure we’ll go back to hard practices again, but we’re gonna enjoy this I think, though. We’re going to enjoy this.”

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