The Warwick North 11/12-year-old all-stars needed its fourth rally of the night on Wednesday, and the best part of the order to deliver it was due up in the final inning. 

Lincoln had just tacked on the lead run in the top of the sixth, while North reliever Cullen McGrew forced a key pop out with the bases loaded to stop the bleeding. 

The top of the lineup was coming to the plate for Warwick, hoping to prevent a winner-takes-all title game on Thursday at Hien Field in Lincoln.

North wouldn’t need Thursday after all. Kenny Rix launched a 2-run double into the right center field gap to score the tying and winning runs, giving Warwick North a 7-6 victory and the Rhode Island Little League state championship. North will now play in Bristol, Connecticut, for the right to represent New England at the Little League World Series.

“I hadn’t done great the first couple at-bats, so I was just gonna go out, get a rip and try to get my team on the board to tie,” Kenny Rix said. “I didn’t know if he was gonna score at home from first, but Colin [Lemieux]’s super fast. I knew we had a shot.”

Aaron Narcavage and Domenic Brazeau led the sixth inning off with full-count walks, forcing a mound visit for reliever Cameron Bernard. Lemieux was due up with two walks on the night, receiving barely any pitches to hit over the course of his first three at-bats.

He finally got one, and ripped it down the first base side. However, it hit off pinch-runner Brendan McCaffrey for the first out of the inning. Warwick still had two runners on, and cleanup hitter Rix wasted no time doing his job. He drove the first pitch he saw to the wall in right center, easily scoring Narcavage and Lemieux to end the game.

“We’re resilient,” Warwick North manager Ken Rix said. “You can’t count us out. Our kids were focused the whole game, fortunately. We played a really good team here tonight. We had the last at-bats and I think that came to our advantage.”

Kenny Rix split time on the mound with McGrew. The former started the title game, going 3 1/3 innings and allowing four runs on six hits with just one walk and one hit batter.

The two sides went back and forth for most of the night. Lincoln snuck ahead first after Alex Ferranti’s RBI single hugged the left field line to plate Danny Fish. A wild pitch put him in scoring position, but Rix struck out Synsere Fernandes and Brendan Hill to keep the deficit manageable.

That would be important for North, as it took its first lead in the home half. Brazeau reached on a fielder’s choice and Rix, despite striking out, got to first on a passed ball to put runners at the corners. Sean Gallagher notched the first hit of the day, sending a 2-2 pitch up the middle to plate Brazeau. 

Chase Pariseau, one of North’s most productive hitter of the tournament, then gave Warwick the lead with his RBI double to left field. In the last two games of the tournament, Pariseau was 4-for-6 with a home run and four RBIs.

“I knew we had to come out here, play good defense because all these teams can hit,” Pariseau said. “They can all play really good but if we had defense, we just had to lock them down, and all we really had to do was hit the ball.”

The advantage wouldn’t last long as Lincoln grabbed the edge in the third. An error at third base allowed the No. 9 hitter, Giuseppe Lisi, to reach to start the inning. He stole second to set up Bernard for his one-out, RBI double to center field. 

Defense continued to plague North during the frame, as a misplayed single in left field later allowed Bernard to take home with the lead run.

Pariseau would come through again in the third, placing an RBI single into right field to even the score, but Warwick couldn’t fend Lincoln off. Pinch-hitter Nathan Kelly began the fourth with a solo home run over the right field wall to give his side its third lead of the day.

Rix’s day was done after Fish singled to put two runners on with one down. McGrew kept North within range, but it would come with suspense. An error loaded the bases for Ferranti, who brought home an insurance run on a sacrifice to center.

McGrew got a tapper back to the mound that got North out of the inning down only two.

The bottom of the order turned in two important at-bats for North to start the fourth. McGrew worked a leadoff walk and pinch-hitter Max Turner reached on an infield single, which was thrown away to allow two runners to reach scoring position. 

The top found its momentum here, as Narcavage cut into the lead with a sacrifice fly. That would be Fish’s final batter, but he was still responsible for the runner at third. 

Reliever Bernard’s first opponent of the night was Brazeau, who quickly got down 0-2 in the count. He responded with an RBI double down the left field line to tie the game at 5. 

McGrew pitched around a runner-at-third, two-out situation in the fifth to keep the game knotted, but Lincoln broke through in the sixth. McGrew got two quick outs before allowing a single to Bernard. He then walked Ferranti on four pitches and hit Fernandes to load the bases.

“He battled,” Ken Rix said of McGrew. “You see it a lot, where the pressure gets to these kids at this age. He held his composure and battled through it for us.”

It looked like McGrew worked out of it after he forced a soft tapper to third base, but Rix’s slide into third for the force out was just late. Every runner was safe, and Lincoln was ahead for the fourth time. 

McGrew settled down and worked through the tension. Kaden Ethier popped out to the mound, and McGrew squeezed his glove for the final out. He kept the game well within reach for Warwick as its most potent part of the order completed the rally.

“I was so scared when he hit the ball,” McGrew said, with a laugh, of recording the final out of the sixth.

There will be a send-off party for Warwick North at The Pit at 6:30 p.m. on Friday night. The squad will play its first game of the tournament Monday afternoon at 1 p.m. against the winner of Maine/Vermont. 

“We’ll do our homework now,” Ken Rix said about preparing for teams outside of the state that North hasn’t seen before. “I never jump two steps ahead. We were looking at [Wednesday]’s game. We weren’t looking at Thursday’s game. We weren’t worried about Connecticut. We were worried about every pitch. In any case, if we do our job and prepare, we can be competitive with any team.”