ITEM PHOTO BY KATIE MORRISON
Anthony Nikolakakis and the Spartans will square off against Classical in Saturday’s Clancy Tournament Final.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — The game that most baseball fans in and around the city perhaps wanted to see will happen.
St. Mary’s made sure of that in the late game of the Nipper Clancy Tournament Friday night. The defending champs will face 18-1 Classical today (3 p.m.) at Fraser Field, with English and North Reading playing at noon in the consolation.
The Spartans defeated English, 5-4, by scoring two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning in a seesaw game that seemed to be affected more by the November-like weather than anything else. Each team misplayed popups that turned into hits. Both teams successfully squeezed runs home. Both teams were sloppy in the field (St. Mary’s made four errors). And both teams missed several chances to put the other away.
“We battled, and I’m proud of the kids,” said English coach Joe Caponigro. “We didn’t make some plays though that we should have made, and we killed ourselves. Same as all year. We have to make those plays.”
Both pitchers, Dax Billingsley (English) and Louis Vidal (St. Mary’s) were long gone by the time the game had ended. But both deserved better.
“Dax really battled,” said Caponigro. Billingsley pitched into the sixth inning before giving way to Geraldo Rojas after having hit Lee Pacheco to lead off the inning. At the time, English was clinging to a 4-3 lead.
“(Billingsley) gave us a chance to win the game,” said Caponigro, “but he was laboring.”
With Rojas in, pinch-hitter Mike Luciano was also hit by a pitch. A wild pitch moved both runners up, and English got a mild reprieve when Ryan Turenne flied out to shallow left. However, Anthony Nikolakakis, with two strikes on him, hit one deep enough to right for a sacrifice fly to tie the game.
“That was a great piece of hitting, because that’s what we talk about a lot,” said St. Mary’s coach Derek Dana, “two-strike hitting. He got it deep enough to score the run, that was a great at-bat.”
The winning run came across when Jack Ward skied one that English shortstop Geo Morales couldn’t find, and the ball bounced just beyond his outstretched glove.
Colin Reddy, in for Vidal, made things very interesting in the bottom of the seventh, loading the bases with two outs before finally getting Alex Rodriguez to pop to short.
St. Mary’s took a 2-0 lead in the second inning when Ward and Kyle Bernardini got back-to-back singles and, after an infield hit by Kyle Ouellette loaded the bases, Tyler Donovan reached on an error that scored one run. As Bernardini came barreling down the line from third, Reddy dropped down a squeeze bunt.
Shoddy St. Mary’s defense allowed English to tie the game in the fourth. J.C. Gonzalez led off with a walk and went to third on Rojas’ single. Billy Allen reached on a two-base error, with both runs coming home.
English went ahead in the fifth when Morales reached on an error, scoring Brian Nunez, who had been hit by a pitch. St. Mary’s got that back when Aedan Leydon scorched a double to left.
“Another great at-bat,” said Dana, still baffled by the fact that St. Mary’s hasn’t had enough of them to satisfy him. “We talk about hitting line drives and ground balls. That was great hitting.”
English went back ahead in the sixth, again thanks to St. Mary’s errors.
“We’ve really got to clean this up,” said Dana. “Louis should have pitched a complete game. We made him get at least six extra outs because we were not outstanding on defense.”