BEVERLY — The final game only lasted about an hour. But the memories the Peabody Little League Williamsport all-stars made this summer will last a lifetime.
Peabody’s dream of winning the state championship, and perhaps reaching the Little League World Series, ended Friday in the state finals. Though the Tanner City kids got off to a hot start in a must-win game, they ran into some trouble in the middle innings and were eliminated by Holden, 13-3, in front of a big and lively crowd at Harry Ball Field.
It wasn’t the kind of ending Peabody wanted, or expected. The final score of the final game, though, does nothing to dampen the accomplishments of a team that reclaimed the District 16 title, won their league’s first Section 4 championship in 28 years and enjoyed the third longest tournament run of any team under the Peabody Little League banner since its founding some 70 years ago.
“It was a lot of fun,” manager John Hoffman reflected. “It was a great run. We as coaches enjoyed it and I think the kids did, too. We told them to remember all the fun they had together.”
This year’s state Final Four hosted by Beverly (on the 75th anniversary of its own Little League charter) was a double-elimination format. Peabody dropped a 1-0 heartbreaker in its Thursday night opener when Walpole plated the game’s only run in its final at-bat. It was a battle of ace pitcher in which neither team had a hit in the first four inning and Peabody wound up hitless for all six of its frames.
Friday, the District 16 champs wasted no time in getting the bats going. Adam Grant delivered his squad’s first base hit of the tourney in the opening inning and Peabody had at least one hit in all four innings.
In the second, Seamus Park clubbed a deep double and when Caleb Dube followed with an RBI single, Peabody was off and running. Chris Harris delivered a fielder’s choice RBI for a 2-0 edge, but Holden pitcher Cam Ginnity escaped the trouble relatively unscathed.
Co-ace Declan Peterson was on the hill for Peabody and worked around some trouble himself in the second when Holden struck back to make it 2-1.
In the third, Peabody got a runner to second base when Tyler Garcia singled and stole his way into scoring position. Ginnity struck out the side, though, and that’s when Holden’s bats came alive.
The Section 1 champs (who went to lose to Walpole in Saturday’s elimination game) took advantage of a Peabody error and then put together six consecutive hits to build a big lead. All told, Holden sent 11 batters up in the inning and scored seven times to break the game open at 8-2.
Jaxson Hoffman of Peabody led off the fourth with a single and it looked like Peabody might claw its way back. Grant smoked a ball that was caught by the right fielder, though, and a Dube sacrifice fly was the only run the Tanner City kids managed.
Holden then strung together three hits and got some luck on a pair of fielder’s choice RBI to pile on five more runs in the bottom of the fourth. By taking a ten run lead at that point in the game, Holden was awarded victory via the mercy rule.
Though Peabody was out hit 10-5, the locals had the harder contact in Friday’s ballgame. Holden, however, put balls in between Peabody fielders and got contact to spots where it proved exceedingly difficult to make defensive plays.
“That’s baseball sometimes,” Hoffman said. “Holden hit the ball well and they hit it where we weren’t. When we hit the ball hard, it was right at them.”
Peterson threw the complete game for Peabody, striking out three.
Looking back at the team’s 7-3 summer, there are almost too many highlights to list for the boys in Carolina Blue. Grant no-hit rival Peabody West early in the District 16 tourney and he and Peterson posted incredible games on back-to-back nights to beat Danvers National twice in the sectional.
There were some amazing defensive plays made by infielders Lukas Downey (first), Matt Gurliaccio (second) and Wes Weed (short). Hoffman threw out some runners from behind the plate and the outfielders like Chris Harris, Nolan Murphy, Garcia and Jack Houlihan tracked down so many hard-hit balls.
Then there’s the off-the-field memories, like team pool parties and playing tic-tac-toe with Wakefield during a lightning delay in the team’s come-from-behind sectional win. As the Peabody boys received their medals as state finalists after Friday’s finale, it seemed they already know that years from now, that’s what they’ll be smiling about.
Or as one parent put it afterwards: “You’re number four in the state and number one in our hearts.”