SWAMPSCOTT — Thanks to their pair of aces, the Peabody Little League all-stars are now on the button as far as this year’s District 16 championship is concerned.
Declan Peterson put the Tanner City kids on his back Wednesday night, shutting down a very good Wyoma team with a complete game four-hitter as Peabody advanced to the D16 title game with a 4-1 victory at Swampscott Middle School.
A few days after teammate Adam Grant tossed a no-hitter against Peabody West, Peterson showed that the Peabody all-stars are far from a one-pitcher outfit. The righthander struck out eight Lynn hitters, walked just one and even dove off the mound to field his position for two outs in the final frame.
“Declan came ready to play,” said Peabody manager John Hoffman. “It was an unbelievable pitching performance.”
Peabody West, Swampscott and Wyoma now duke it out for the right to face Peabody in the next Thursday’s championship game. On Tuesday, Wyoma will face the winner of Monday’s Peabody West/Swampscott battle. The ultimate winner out of the loser’s bracket will need to defeat Peabody twice in order to wrest away the pennant.
“We’re not done yet. We definitely want that banner,” said Hoffman, whose team has technically clinched a spot in the Section 4 tourney, since District 16 gets two entrants this summer. “Last year, we were three outs away from the 11-year-old title and lost it, so getting that banner means a lot to this group.
“They’ve improved a lot — they want to keep getting better and better and keep this momentum going.”
A three-run outburst in the opening inning got Peabody going in Wednesday’s win. Jack Houlihan got things going with a leadoff double, then came home on Adam Grant’s RBI single.
Jaxson Hoffman (walk) scored on a fielder’s choice RBI by Wes Weed to make it 2-0, but with two outs Peabody wasn’t done. Seamus Park clobbered a loud homer some 210 feet to the grassy hill in right field for a 3-0 lead.
“We were swinging it in that first inning. Jumping out early like that sets the tone and put us in a good position,” said Hoffman. “We’d like to keep our foot on the gas pedal the whole game, but Wyoma’s a really good team so it wasn’t going to be easy.”
Wyoma’s Cole Dobbins limited Peabody to two hits the rest of the way. The Tanner City kids added an insurance run when Weed reached on an error and came around on a miscue following Caleb Dube’s single. Dobbins stranded two on base with a pair of strikeouts, but Peabody’s defense made sure the four runs were more than enough.
An infield single by Jack Nardone plated Tristan Duvert (single) with Wyoma’s lone run in the second inning. Dante Duval clubbed a double to lead off the fourth, but Peterson got the next three in order and Wyoma didn’t have another baserunner until the sixth.
Peabody played error-free defense, with catcher Hoffman making an excellent running catch in foul ground to end one threat and Grant making several nice plays at shortstop. First baseman Lukas Downey also excelled at both picking up long throws and coming off the bag to field tough grounders.
“We talk a lot about contributing in every part of the game, doing whatever we need to do to get that ‘W’,” said manager Hoffman. “We didn’t have our best day in terms of the hits, but we made up for that with a lot of the plays we made on defense.”
Houlihan led Peabody’s offense by going 2-for-3 while Grant, Dube, and Park had the other hits. Downey walked twice and Weed and Nolan Murphy also drew free passes.
Peabody will be making its first sectional tourney appearance since 2019 and is after its third District 16 title since the American and National Leagues merged eight years ago.