The Flood Ford Auto Connie Mack baseball team topped Warwick PAL in two games to advance to the semifinals and end PAL’s season.

Flood took Game 1 by a score of 9-4 and then would roll to an 11-0 win to clinch the series in Game 2

Flood starting pitcher Chris Manzo was stellar on the mound in Game 1, striking out seven batters in six innings of work and allowing just two runs. Flood led 9-0 heading into the seventh inning before PAL put up four runs.

Will Mascena led Flood with two RBI on three hits while Mason Broomfield and Angelo Fuscarallo each scored a pair of runs. Chris Banach, Connor Farrell, JJ Tourgee and Devin  Farrell scored runs for PAL in the seventh inning.

Flood coach Brian Leahey was happy with Manzo’s outing as well as the defense behind him.

“It’s always important for us to have our defense and pitching come through. Manzo has experience and he was big. The regular season is one thing, but in the playoffs, it’s a new season and everyone is 0-0. Having that veteran with that experience is huge and so is having some of those young guys that they can take under their wing,” said Leahey, “(Hitting is) always contagious, too. Sometimes all it takes is that one little spark and then the band of brothers kicks in and gets going. Once again it comes down to experience too and they have that.”

Manzo’s game plan was simple: attack the batters and throw strikes.

“Throwing fastballs, my curveball was on. I wasn’t as sharp as I wanted to be, but I got ahead on the counts, stayed ahead and just attacked batters. I have a good defense behind me, so when you have a big lead, you have to pitch for contact,” said Manzo.

PAL coach Ed Colvin felt that the difference in the loss was pitching depth, as well as a couple of costly mistakes.

“(Manzo’s) one of the better pitchers that you’re going to see in Connie Mack. We had a few decent at bats, hit a few hard balls at people. He’s got a good curveball, throws hard, he’s one of the better pitchers that you’re going to see. We made a few mistakes at the worst possible time. They had a couple of two-out hits. Our pitching was short tonight so it kind of got away from us in the end. It was a decent game up until that point and I am proud of the kids for coming back and putting up those four runs,” said Colvin, who felt that his team showed some resilience in the seventh inning, as well as the season, as the team turned around from a 1-5 start. “We had a couple of baserunning mistakes early and against a good team like that, there is a very small margin for error. I’m glad our kids battled, this team has heart, especially when thinking about how they started the season.”