GREENFIELD — It looked like Greenfield Post 81 had it wrapped up heading into the seventh inning Tuesday night at Vets Field.
Greenfield held a 4-1 lead, but visiting East Longmeadow Post 293 was not ready to quit. A single by Dylan Bousquet got the rally going, followed by Mike Moynihan reaching on a single of his own. A dribbler to third by Connor Birks looked to be the second out of the inning, but an errant throw brought Bousquet and Moynihan home to make it a one-run game.
Jacob Berry hit the next batter and walked the next to load the bases, and a passed ball brought Birks home to tie the game heading into the bottom of the seventh.
“They tied it, but they didn’t take the lead,” Greenfield coach Kyle Phelps said of East Longmeadow. “That was a big thing. I was proud of them there.”
Then, it was Greenfield’s time to rally.
Ben Arnold opened the bottom of the seventh with his second double of the game, bringing Kalen Evans to the plate. The Frontier graduate rocketed a shot to the center field gap, bringing Arnold home to give Greenfield a walk-off 5-4 victory in an American Legion Senior Division contest. It was the second walk-off win for Post 81 in five days, as the team bested Wilbraham Red, 4-3, in the same fashion last week.
Arnold, who pitched into the fifth inning, reached base on all four of his at bats, scoring the first run of the game off a single by Joel Peabody.
“Benny is the leader of our team,” Phelps said. “He’s one of our captains. He didn’t want to come out of the game, he wasn’t happy with me but he knows it’s a team game and he came through big time.”
The first three innings saw little action, as Arnold and East Longmeadow pitcher Michael O’Shea kept runners off the bases.
Peabody’s RBI in the fourth was the first run of the game, but East Longmeadow quickly answered in the top of the fifth when Devin Dobek brought Bousquet in from second with a single.
The tie wouldn’t last long, with Greenfield tacking on two runs in the bottom of the fifth as Arnold brought Colin Cloutier and Connor Waitkus in with a double to make it 3-1.
Greenfield’s fourth run came in the sixth, when Garrett Deforest got on with a single and stole second and third before being brought home off a single by Bryan Baumann to give the hosts a 4-1 advantage.
After facing a Westfield pitcher the night before who threw over 80 miles per hour, it took the Greenfield lineup a few innings to get a read on the softer-throwing O’Shea.
“With their pitcher, he was a little slower than we were used to so we had to adjust to him,” Phelps said. “I think it took our guys a while to adjust.”
Berry closed the final 2⅓ innings in relief of Arnold, allowing just three hits.
In the seventh, he took a hard-hit ground ball of the leg, but that didn’t keep him from finishing the game.
“This league, we have a pitch count so we were hoping Jacob could get through the inning,” Phelps said. “It was a low-pitch inning and he is a tough kid taking the ball of the knee. He didn’t give me a chance to take him out of that game, he was staying in no matter what.”
Greenfield, which improved to 7-2 with the victory, is back in action Wednesday, taking on East Springfield at Forest Park (5:45 p.m.). East Longmeadow fell to 4-4 on the summer.