LONGMEADOW — Longmeadow scored nine times in the first three innings and left Greenfield Post 81 in the dust, 9-4, in the Massachusetts American Legion Baseball District 1/2/3 Double-Elimination Playoffs Wednesday night at Longmeadow High School.
The loss moves Post 81 into the losers’ bracket in a tourney that featured the final eight teams in western Massachusetts. Greenfield will host Wilbraham Post 286 tonight at 7 at Veterans Memorial Field in Greenfield in an elimination game.
“It will be interesting to see what this team does with its back against the wall,” Greenfield skipper Tim Capuano said after the loss. “We have a lot of character guys on this team. Our response (tonight) is going to tell me a lot and it’s going to tell me how far we are going to go in this tournament.”
Greenfield (10-8) found its back against the wall early on when Longmeadow (13-3) hung a pair of runs on the board in the first inning to take a 2-0 lead. Then, after Greenfield got one back in the top of the second, Longmeadow scored three more times in the second by batting around. Greenfield starting pitcher Matt Ackerman (1 innings pitched, one strikeout) struggled with control, walking five hitters, three of which crossed the plate. When he did throw strikes, Longmeadow hitters were not missing them. Nolan Pandolfi belted a two-run double in the first inning, and Max Winkler crushed a two-run triple in the second. Ackerman departed in the second after Greenfield fell behind 5-1 and he got into a bases-loaded jam with one out. Post 81 reliever Quinn Doyle came on and got two outs without allowing an inherited runner to score to give Greenfield a little life.
Longmeadow starter Justin Feldman (five innings, two strikeouts, four walks) did his part to hold the lead, though, keeping the Greenfield hitters off-balance in the five innings he worked. Feldman got ahead of a number of hitters by using off-speed pitches on his first pitch of an at-bat. The Longmeadow offense continued to pile up the support in the bottom of the third inning, adding four more runs to push the lead to 9-1.
The Longmeadow fourth included a number of close plays that did not go Greenfield’s way, first when a close-play at first resulted in a call that Post 81 first baseman Zach Mooney pulled his foot off the bag, then later when Greenfield tried to get a force at third on a ball hit back to Doyle and it was ruled that Post 81 third baseman Tyler Charboneau had lifted his foot off the bag when he fielded a high throw. The Greenfield coaching staff vehemently argued the call to no avail. Sure enough, the very next batter roped a ground ball at Charboneau, who still seemed flustered and allowed the ball to get through him at third base, scoring two runs. Nicholas Erwin then belted an RBI double to complete the scoring in the frame.
Greenfield tried to rally, scoring once in the fifth when Nate Crocker walked, went to third on a Mooney single and scored on Seth Gewanter’s sacrifice fly to center. Greenfield threatened again in the sixth, as ubiquitous Tionne Brown singled and Tyler Townsley walked with one out before Crocker hit an RBI single. Kevin Luippold then reached on an error to score another run, making it 9-4 with the meat of the Greenfield order coming to the plate. But Longmeadow reliever Seth Conklin bore down and came back to strike out Mooney and Gewanter to get out of the jam without further damage. Longmeadow reliever Matt Walthouse allowed a leadoff walk to Charboneau in the seventh but struck out the next three hitters to finish off the victory.
“I think in this game, they beat us. We didn’t beat ourselves today,” Capuano said. “They hit the ball well and they had a good pitcher on the mound who kept us off-balance. I think our guys played well. We just had a few things here and there that didn’t go our way. That’s baseball.”
For the second game in a row, Doyle pitched very well in relief, allowing the four unearned runs, but not surrendering a run in the final three innings. Doyle finished with three strikeouts and no walks in 4 innings. Julian Diamond also tripled and scored on a wild pitch in the second inning for Post 81. Gavan Rice added a hit.
Longmeadow moves on in the winners’ bracket and will face Pittsfield today at Clapp Field in Pittsfield.