Any time the Danvers High baseball team takes the field, be prepared to stick around until the final pitch is thrown.
Win or lose, the Falcons have made a habit of seeing their games decided in the final at-bat this season, a trend that continued in an instant classic of a playoff battle with Northeastern Conference rival Swampscott on Monday.
No. 22 seeded Danvers took the lead in the top of the seventh inning before escaping a jam when the 11th ranked Big Blue put the tying run on base in the bottom half to a win a Division 3 Round of 32 battle, 4-2, at DeFelice Diamond.
“You can’t cut it any closer than what we’re doing,” quipped Falcons head coach Matt Mello, whose team won in extra innings in the preliminary round. “The way this year has gone, why wouldn’t be interesting at the end?”
The Falcons (11-11) have won two playoff games in a season for the first time since 2021 and await the winner of No. 6 Fairhaven and No. 29 Taconic for a Sweet 16 battle.
Senior captain Beckett Wodarski threw a complete game victory for Danvers on Monday, scattering six hits and striking out four while walking only one.
“I told Beckett I thought it was his best (pitching) game of the season. An 84-pitch complete game against a great hitting team like Swampscott? That’s a great effort,” said Mello, who noted how his ace worked quickly and attacked. “He got ahead right away and had a lot of 1- or 2-pitch at-bats. I thought he did a phenomenal job with the top of their order.”
The NEC Lynch champs from Swampscott (16-5) led 2-0 after Caden Ross had an RBI single in the bottom of the first and Isaiah Baires delivered an RBI double in the fourth.
Senior right-hander Jamison Ford was dealing for the Big Blue, striking out 10 and allowed just two earned runs.
Danvers managed to scratch out a run in the fifth when Colby Medeiros doubled home Drew Godfried, giving themselves a chance to rally late by cutting the lead in half (2-1).
“Ford was in control for the most part,” said Mello, “but we hung around. We’ve been in so many of these close games this year and it benefitted us in that moment. We believed we could do it because we’d done it before.”
Godfried (2-for-3) led off the seventh with a single in the No. 9 slot, and leadoff man Jack Curcuru worked an eight-pitch walk to put two on. Ford made a great play on an attempted bunt to get the lead runner, but a grounder made it 1st-and-3rd with two outs.
That’s when Chase Richmond delivered an RBI single to tie the game. An error when the next batter put the ball in play gave Danvers the lead, and Wodarski helped himself with a deep double to plate an insurance run.
The Big Blue weren’t about to go down quietly. Cooper Correnti worked a leadoff walk in the bottom of the seventh and Connor Chiarello beat out an infield single to bring the go-ahead run to the plate.
At that point, Mello made a trip to the mound and told his Falcons they had plenty left in the tank.
“All I said was we’ve been this situation 1,000 times this year and gotten out of it most of the time,” said Mello. “The message was be calm and let the process work itself out.”
It did as Wodarski induced a fly ball out, and then finished the job with a groundout.
“We just couldn’t get those last runs in,” said Big Blue head coach Joe Caponigro. “Ford pitched excellent in defeat. It was a tough way to end a great season.”
Chiarello went 2-for-4 for Swampscott while senior catcher Michael Collins had a hit, as did seniors Dylan DiFilippo, Chase Groothuis and Ford.
Swampscott won its first league title since 1997 this spring and at one point won 12 straight games.
It was the first time in at least 40 years that Swampscott and Danvers met in a playoff game. Richmond had some “huge moments” according to Mello and finished 2-for-4, while Jason Walters (run) and Dylan Weeks also had hits.
“It was an awesome atmosphere for baseball … one of those games you hate to see anybody lose,” said Mello, whose team played five extra inning games in the regular season and lost them all, but has rebounded in the postseason.
“I’m really happy for my guys that they’re benefitting from all those battles they went through. That’s the kind of game we play: it’s never easy, it’s hold on your butts and go.”