Cranston walks off on Warwick 14’s to win state championship

Brenton Bauerle
Posted 7/21/15

When a championship is on the line, the pressure is nearly incalculable. Add into the mix the fact that the competitors for the Babe Ruth 14-year old championships are so young, and it would be …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Cranston walks off on Warwick 14’s to win state championship

Posted

When a championship is on the line, the pressure is nearly incalculable. Add into the mix the fact that the competitors for the Babe Ruth 14-year old championships are so young, and it would be reasonable to expect some sloppy play as the gravity of the moment meets the youthful inexperience of the players. In Cranston’s thrilling 2-1 win over Warwick to capture the Babe Ruth championship, however, there was no such sloppy play to be found, but rather a low-scoring duel that would have made any baseball purist proud.

“I’m just glad we won the coin toss,” said Cranston head coach Rick Lanigan. “We had last bats, and that made all the difference.”

It was a challenging day for the Warwick squad, as it had to complete a rain-shortened affair against Providence only two hours before the first pitch of the championship game. Such a scheduling hurdle – especially for a team that would have been forced, due to a previous loss, to defeat Cranston two times in order to seize the title – might easily be held as an excuse to roll over and die. 

But Warwick had no such illusions as it entered the contest, and the game was as tense as a drawn bowstring from start to finish. Both starters – Blake Roberge for Warwick and Jordan Marot for Cranston, respectively – were dealing from the start, as Roberge registered four of his first six outs via strikeout and Marot allowing only two singles through the first two innings in what was shaping up to be a real pitchers’ duel.

Marot was the first to crack, allowing a run in the top of the third courtesy of an RBI single by Roberge. In a game where runs seemed to have gone the way of the dodo bird, even a single run seemed like a large deficit. Luckily, Cranston did not have to wait long to close the gap, as Roberge mirrored his counterpart in the bottom of the third, allowing Cranston to scratch across a run courtesy of a walk, an error and an RBI single by Quinn Lanigan, knotting the score at 1.

Each team threatened to score multiple times the rest of the way, but each time were stifled by a combination of well-executed pitching and solid defense. The game was sent into extra innings when Cranston failed to finish the game off in the bottom of the sixth, and it only escaped the top of the seventh with a lead thanks to a terrific double play on a line drive up the middle turned by Brad Thies.

Having narrowly escaped giving up a lead in the top of the inning, Cranston knew it had to finish the game sooner rather than later. As luck would have it, sooner would prove to be almost immediate, as Dan Egan led off the inning with a single and would come around to score three batters later thanks to a booming shot to left field off the bat of first baseman L.J. Felicio, securing the win and the championship for Cranston.

“I think the confidence that [all our players] are good hitters, and anybody in any situation can make a good play at the plate,” said Lanigan in reference to how his team was able to buckle down and win in extra innings. “I feel really confident with this group, because we just have good ballplayers who can come in in any situation and get the job done.”

With the win, Cranston not only secured the Rhode Island state championship, but earned a berth in the New England regional tournament as Rhode Island’s representative. Only time will tell if it has the talent to compete at the next level. But whatever happens at the regional tournament, Cranston can take solace in the fact that it’s already a champion.

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here