A mere 24 hours after dropping a heartbreaker in extra innings, the Beverly/Salem Legion baseball team couldn’t afford to dwell on the past. To keep their season alive, Post 331 had to bounce back.
Behind 6 2/3 no-hit innings from Jayden Cunningham and a quick K from Mark Walsh, Beverly/Salem topped Greenfield Post 81, 2-1, Sunday morning in the second round of the Massachusetts Legion championship tournament in Milford.
The eight team playoff followed a modified double-elimination format, so the District 8 champs from Beverly/Salem will be back in Milford on Monday to face either Franklin or Sandwich (4 p.m.) needing another win to live to fight in the semifinals on Tuesday.
Cunningham, who starred at Peabody High and played as a collegiate freshman at SUNY Canton in New York, put his team on his back Sunday by retiring 15 out of 17 batters he faced between the second and sixth innings. He struck out six and only walked two, but did hit five batters to give Greenfield a little bit of life in a few frames; each time, however, he bore down and got out of trouble.
Beverly/Salem took the lead immediately in the top of the first when Shea Christel reached on an error, Cunningham and Ethan Waybret singled and Matt Stuart recorded a fielder’s choice RBI. The lead doubled in the fourth when Mark Bettencourt provided a sac fly (plating Sandy Arendall) and with the way Cunningham pithced, that was all Post 331 needed.
The winners totaled six hits, all singles, with Arendall, Bettencourt and Christel also recording base knocks.
Greenfield had the bases loaded and the tying run 90 feet away when Walsh came on in the seventh, and he delivered the clutch strikeout to end the game.
Saturday, Beverly/Salem fell to Leominster, 4-3, in extra innings. Post 331 trailed 2-0 early but tied things up on an RBI bunt single by Christel and a Cunningham sac fly.
Jacob Sinibaldi pitched great in relief for Beverly/Salem, holding Leominster scoreless in the sixth, seventh and eighth. Post 331 finally broke through in the top of the ninth, taking a 3-2 lead on a Stuart sac fly that scored Cunningham (double).
Leominster, however, got a pair of two out singles in the bottom of the ninth to walk off with the state tournament victory.
Micah McManus threw the first 4 2/3 for Beverly/Salem on Saturday, striking out four and allowing two earned. Christel went 2-for-4 while Walsh and Sinibaldi also singled and scored.