The Lynn Little Leaguers dogpile on the field after their 5-2 win over Beverly to win the Gallant Tournament title. Photo by Bob Roche
By Scot Cooper
SALEM — The Lynn Little Leaguers joined their Babe Ruth counterparts in the winner’s circle on Wednesday.
Three home runs gave pitcher Aiven Cabral enough support as Lynn claimed a 5-2 victory over Beverly, winning the Gallant Tournament championship.
Lynn dropped the first game of the tournament, and then swept its remaining games to claim the championship. Wednesday night’s win was Lynn’s fifth straight after losing, 3-2, to Beverly in its opener on August 13.
Cabral was opposed on the hill by Beverly’s Joe Brown. Both pitchers breezed through the first inning, and then Lynn’s offense took the lead.
Aaron O’Connor drove one over the fence for the first run of the game to lead off the second inning. Damian Guadarrama was up next, and he powered a Brown fastball over the fence in left-center for a 2-0 advantage.
Beverly had runners on base in each of the first four innings, but could not get a timely hit to score a run.
Lynn padded the lead to 4-0 in the top of the fourth, giving Cabral some breathing room. O’Connor singled and he was followed by another hit from Yordy Contreras. Jason Donahue singled in Cabral, moving Contreras over to third. Contreras and Donahue then executed a perfect delayed-steal. That led to Contreras scoring the fourth Lynn run of the night.
O’Connor notched his third hit of the game in the sixth inning when he homered off of Beverly’s Dom Santos, who pitched the final two innings.
O’Connor said he was excited after helping his team get the win with two home runs at the plate.
“I hit both fastballs for both homers,” O’Connor said. “I was so excited when I hit the first one, and then to hit another one, and win the game, it’s really great, incredible.”
Lynn manager Jeff Earp said it was great to see O’Connor come up big for his team.
“He’s such a great kid, he’s been playing with a lot of confidence in the past few games,” Earp said. “He’s got a little swagger to him, and his teammates get a big kick out of him, just a great kid.”
Beverly got a pair of runs in the sixth inning. Charlie Mack singled in Joe Loreti, and Brennan Frost singled up the middle bringing Mack in from third. Cabral retired five of the next six batters to lock up the game, ending the seventh by whiffing Loreti.
Cabral struck out seven and didn’t walk a batter. He said his confidence was boosted when his team got him a few runs in the second inning. .
“The guys got me some runs and it made me feel much better out there, it was good to have the lead,” Cabral said. Cabral was named the outstanding pitcher of the tournament after the game.
“Aiven Cabral was just fantastic tonight, he’s been fantastic the whole tournament,” Earp said.
O’Connor also grabbed some hardware, receiving the tournament MVP trophy. Catcher Gordo Duverge received the Coaches Award.
Beverly manager Rich Barnard said it was tough to lose these last two games, but his team had a great run this summer.
“We played 19 games as a team, we’ve gone incredibly far this season, these are great kids, and they have a bright baseball future,” Bernard said. “I’m so proud of these kids, we would have loved to win it, you can’t take anything away from Lynn, they’re a great team.”