The Rockport baseball team did not go down without a fight in Thursday’s season finale at Essex Tech.
The Vikings were looking to play spoiler as the host Hawks entered the game needing a win to reach the state tournament. Rockport gave Essex Tech all it could handle, and even held a late lead, but the home team rallied to tie it late and picked up a 6-5 win in extra innings.
With the loss, Rockport finishes up the season at 1-17. A young Vikings squad, however, showed some improvements in the stretch run of the season playing better baseball and picking up their first win of the season earlier in the week, 11-3 over Cape Ann League rival Ipswich.
Essex Tech took a 1-0 lead early but Rockport answered back to make it 1-1 with a Colin Porter sacrifice fly scoring Brady Murray, who started on the mound and pitched well.
The Vikings then took a 4-1 lead with a pair of RBI hits from Patrick Reardon including a two-run single in the fourth to open up the three-run lead. Essex Tech began chipping away from there with two runs on an error in the fifth to cut the deficit to 4-3.
Murray then helped out his own cause with a RBI infield single in the sixth to make it 5-3. Essex Tech, however, would battle back for two more in the bottom of the frame to tie it at 5-5 and send it into extras. Jacoby Casinelli Tarasuik’s ninth inning single drove in the winning run and sent the Hawks to the playoffs.
Rockport took a few lumps in 2023 but loses only three seniors to graduation from this year’s squad and looks to be an improved team in 2024.