PHOTO BY BOB ROCHE
Swampscott first baseman A.J.Venuti made a great snag of a shot down the baseline.
By STEVE KRAUSE
MELROSE — The Austin Prep baseball team has one player committed to Harvard, another to Boston College and a third to St. Joseph College in Maine. The Cougars’ 17-4 record coming into Wednesday’s MIAA Division 3 North quarterfinal game against Swampscott was testament to that.
Now it’s 18-4.
Swampscott, 12-11, hung with the sixth-seeded Cougars for three innings. But the long ball did in the Big Blue and because of that, it’ll be Austin Prep moving on to play Bishop Fenwick tonight (7) at Fraser Field in the sectional semifinal. The winner of that game faces No. 3 Lynnfield in the final. The Pioneers already locked up their spot with a 7-3 win Wednesday over No. 2 Latin Academy.
Austin Prep jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning and never looked back. Dylan Arnold led off by getting hit with a pitch from Big Blue starter Luke Marshall. After Harvard-bound Logan Bravo — during whose at-bat Arnold stole second — BC-bound Peter Burns was walked intentionally.
Marshall appeared to be out of the inning when he fanned Kyle Barry for the second out. But first baseman Josh Bartnicki singled to score one run, and John Gilbride reached on an error allowing the second one to score.
“We really didn’t help ourselves in that first inning,” said Swampscott coach Jason Calichman. “They perhaps scored a run they shouldn’t have scored.
“But,” he said, “we can play with them. I wish we could play the again.”
Swampscott got one of those runs back in the second inning when David Peterson singled and came around to score on another base hit by Graham Inzana.
However, the Cougars negated that run in the bottom of the second when No. 9 hitter Alex Martinez cleared the left-field wall with a solo home run and it was 3-1.
Once again, Swampscott crept closer in the third. Sean Lahrizi led off by reaching on an error, took second on Lou Oliveri’s single, and scored on another base hit by Ryan Graciale. However, Austin turned a nifty double play when third baseman Martinez grabbed a hot grounder on the line, stepped on third, and threw to first to nail A.J. Venuti by a step.
Austin Prep put the game away in the bottom of the fourth with three runs, two of them on Bravo’s home run.
Swampscott got a run in the top of the seventh on Inzana’s home run that just cleared the left field fence.
Calichman had nothing but praise for Marshall, who is a junior.
“He battled,” he said. “He deserved far more than we gave him today. I think he’s one of the best pitchers in the Northeastern Conference, but three runs is not going to cut it.”
Austin Prep coach Steve Busby was happy with his pitcher, Cam Seguin, too.
“He keeps hitters off-balance, and he pitches to contact,” Busby said. “I thought he did well.
“And I thought we played well too,” he said. “We haven’t played in six days, so we were a little rusty.”