Warwick 14’s advance in losers’ bracket, oust Aquidneck Island

Jake Marrocco
Posted 7/16/15

The Warwick PAL Babe Ruth 14-year-old All-Stars spread the wealth on Monday night at Cranston Stadium as all nine starters scored one run in a 9-3 defeat of Aquidneck Island to stay alive in the …

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Warwick 14’s advance in losers’ bracket, oust Aquidneck Island

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The Warwick PAL Babe Ruth 14-year-old All-Stars spread the wealth on Monday night at Cranston Stadium as all nine starters scored one run in a 9-3 defeat of Aquidneck Island to stay alive in the losers’ bracket.

Jake Brodeur picked up the victory in relief after going three innings and holding Aquidneck Island to just one hit over that span. Aquidneck’s extreme impatience and aggression at the plate proved to help Warwick’s pitchers, too. Brodeur, Warwick starter Nick Laramee and Blake Roberge, who pitched the seventh, combined to throw just 65 pitches to 30 Aquidneck batters over the course of the night.

“I know our best baseball is still ahead of us and the guys have the believe that,” Warwick PAL manager Billy Piccirillo said.

Warwick was more patient at the plate, and it helped them use up two Aquidneck pitchers by the end of the third inning. Laramee started the game with a leadoff walk and eventually moved to third on Mike Hampson’s bunt. Jake Langevin brought him home with a sacrifice fly into shallow right field to make it 1-0.

Laramee pitched himself out of a jam with a runner on third in the first inning, and his teammates got back to getting run support. Will Martino notched a one-out base hit up the middle and stole second base before Nick Jaggi struck out swinging. Martino’s swipe was one of 11 stolen bases on the day for Warwick.

Catcher Josiah Johnson came up big with a two-out RBI single into left field to plate Martino. A throwing error on the play by catcher Grady Richard, who was trying to throw out Johnson advancing to second, allowed Johnson to get to third. Laramee continued to help his own cause with an RBI single up the middle to bring Johnson to the plate for a 3-0 lead.

Aquidneck had a chance to potentially pull even in the second frame, loading the bases with one out for second baseman Joel Alexander. Laramee got just what he needed, though. Alexander hit a soft grounder back to the mound, which Laramee flipped home for one out and Johnson threw on to first for the inning-ending double play.

PAL broke the game open in the third inning, plating four more runs. Langevin and Roberge got the scoring going with back-to-back singles that put them at the corners with no outs. Jacob Resendes then sent an RBI base hit up the middle to bring home Langevin from third to pull ahead 4-0.

After a fielder’s choice put Resendes on second and Tyler Noonan on first, PAL continued to test Richard’s arm behind the dish. Both runners took off and Richards’ throw down to third sailed into left field, allowing Resendes to score and Noonan to take third. Noonan scored on Jaggi’s RBI bloop single into right to extend the lead to 6-0.

“We’ve been getting better leads [on base],” Piccirillo said. “We felt the catcher wasn’t as strong, the lead catcher wasn’t as strong as the other [catcher] that they put in later.”

Jaggi stole the fourth PAL base of the inning to put himself into scoring position, and moved to third on Johnson’s single into left-centerfield. A wild pitch allowed Jaggi to come home for the seventh Warwick run.

Aquidneck made the game interesting in the home half of the third. Alex Echevarria sent a one-out single into right field before Austin Sisk popped up to the pitcher. Tommy McSparren’s weak grounder to second base looked to end the inning, but Jaggi bobbled the ball and McSparren reached safely.

The error would prove to be costly. Owen Sullivan sent an RBI single into left field to bring Echevarria home. Sullivan and McSparren both moved into scoring position after Noonan misplayed the ball in left. Both would come across the plate on Gunnar Rinkle’s two-RBI bloop single to pull Aquidneck within four, 7-3.

Brodeur and Roberge shut the door on Aquidneck after that point. The two combined to strike out five, walk one and allow zero runners to advance past second base. Brodeur got Sisk to line into a double play in the fifth, and got a force out to end a first-and-second situation in the sixth. Roberge threw seven pitches in the seventh to close out Aquidneck.

Noonan’s RBI single in the fourth and Resendes’ RBI infield hit in the sixth tacked on insurance for PAL. Resendes’ single to the left side brought Hampson, the only starter thus far not to score a run, to the plate.

PAL was scheduled to face Providence in the losers’ bracket for a chance to play Cranston in the finals on Tuesday night. However, a rainout moved that game to last night at 7 p.m. Results were not available at press time.

“We need three more wins and if we play the games one at a time, we can still win this tournament,” Piccirillo said.

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