PHOTO BY BOB ROCHE
Danvers starter Dean Borders held Dighton-Rehoboth scoreless in his outing, but it wasn’t enough for the Falcons to notch the win in the Division 2 EMass championship at Fraser Field on Wednesday.
By MATT FRASER
LYNN — Wednesday evening’s MIAA Division 2 state championship was as good a baseball game as one could hope to see given the time of year. So despite the final, a 1-0, extra-inning win from Dighton-Rehoboth over Danvers, both teams left Fraser Field with heads held high.
With that being said, the sting of defeat is sure to last for the locals who came up just short in the state title game for the second time in as many seasons.
“We couldn’t have done anymore,” said Danvers coach Roger Day, whose offense couldn’t break through against Dighton-Rehoboth ace lefthander Joe Rogers (9 strikeouts, 1 hit batter), who yielded just three hits in eight innings.
“It’s the best four-year run the program has ever had with last year (4-3 loss to Middleborough) preceding trips to the sectional quarterfinals in 2014 and and sectional final in 2013.”
Pitching was the story from start to finish as the Rogers and Danvers’ junior Dean Borders staged a pitching duel for the ages until the latter was removed in the fifth, despite carrying a no-hitter. Senior ace Andrew Olszak took over from there, cruising through 2 2/3 innings before a leadoff single from Brody Rubenstein in the eighth inning kickstarted the deciding dramatics. Rogers followed with a chop single up the middle, moving the winning run to third before Olszak got Jake Salera swinging ahead of an intentional walk to Cory Farrelly, loading the bases.
What came next was as unpredictable as it was unavoidable.
With the count sitting at 2-0, Steve Silvia dropped down a suicide squeeze into no man’s land, allowing Rubenstein to score without a throw.
“If one of those first two pitches had been a strike, it would have changed everything,” said Day. “Once the count was 2-0 our hands were tied. That’s a great play on their part.”
Dighton-Rehoboth coach Bill Cuthbertson offered his own two-cents on the game-winning play, the first squeeze play he’d called for in what he believes to be five years.
“As the inning evolved, it became more and more clear in my mind. I almost called for it on 1-0 but we waited a pitch and (Olszak) had nowhere to put (Silvia) who is a great bunter. We happened to have our fastest runner on third so the pieces were in place so we pulled the trigger.”
The teams combined for just seven hits in total, four from the victors.
Senior Danny Lynch had the first two knocks for Danvers before sophomore Tommy Mento opened the top of the eighth with a sharp single to center field.
Borders (2 strikeouts, 3 walks, 1 hit batter) was sensational over his first four innings of work before consecutive one-out walks led to Olszak (5 strikeouts) entering in relief.
“Both pitched well enough to win as did the team as a whole,” said Day, whose decision to remove Borders was something Cuthbertson foresaw.
“We’re not very familiar with (Olszak) but we know he earned the decision in the last eight tournament games so when he didn’t start the game, we were sure we’d see him before long,” said Cuthbertson. “Both of (Danvers) guys pitched phenomenally. This was a great high school baseball game.”