Entering Wednesday night’s game against Greenfield, the Cal Ripken 11U team from Dracut had not lost in over a month and a half.
The Greenfield offense, ended that streak.
Greenfield scored 12 runs on 13 hits, including piling up nine runs in the fourth inning, to knock off Dracut, 12-1, in the mercy-rule shortened, five-inning semifinals of the New England 11U Cal Ripken Tournament at Capone Field in Dedham.
The win sends Greenfield into tonight’s championship game, which takes place at 8 p.m. at Capone Field. Greenfield will face the winner of Wednesday’s other semifinal between Marshwood, Maine and Washington Park, R.I. The championship game will take place at 8 p.m. and can be viewed live at fourdeepsportstalk.com. Cal Ripken does not have a National Tournament for 11U.
Wednesday’s semifinal pitted the West champion Greenfield against Eastern Mass. champion Dracut and the game started off predictably enough as neither team was able to scratch a run across in the first two innings as starting pitchers Jackson Campbell (Greenfield) and Jake Torpui (Dracut) were both in control. Greenfield finally got on the board in the third as Brayden Thayer (3-for-3 with two runs scored) led off with a hit. Campbell hit into a fielder’s choice, and Ethan Quinn grounded out to first to move Campbell to second. Cam Burnett then hit a ball to the outfield that was dropped for an error, allowing Campbell to score for a 1-0 lead.
Greenfield broke things open in the fourth with an offensive onslaught the team has not seen in some time.
“We really crushed the ball that inning,” Greenfield coach Aaron Campbell said. “We had 13 hits in the game and we really haven’t put together a game like this all week. We had been hitting in spots and not scoring a lot of runs. Tonight, the kids hit the ball the way they were capable of hitting it. The Dracut pitchers threw hard, but I think our kids hit hard pitching pretty well.”
Hugh Cyhowski led off the top of the fourth with a walk and went to second and third on passed balls. Deven Dubie followed with a walk and then stole second, allowing Cyhowski to score on the double-steal. Jake Brook (2-for-3) drove in Dubie with a single, and Silas Muzzy and Brayden Thayer each walked to load the bases. Campbell roped a two-run double to make it 5-0, and Thayer and Campbell both scored on passed balls to make it 7-0. Quinn was hit by a pitch and Burnett grounded into a fielder’s choice before Braeden Tsipenyuk doubled. Cyhowski followed with an RBI single, and Dubie hit a two-run opposite-field double to make it 10-0.
Dracut scored an unearned run in the bottom of the fourth to extend the game, but Greenfield ended things in the top of the fifth with two runs as Tsipenyuk hit a two-run double in the frame.
Campbell earned the win with one strikeout and two hits allowed in 3 1/3 innings, while Quinn finished up with one strikeout and two hits allowed in 1 2/3 innings.