Published April 29, 2021
NORTH READING — North Reading Little League still provided baseball over April Vacation week. While the Minors and T-Ball are coming up on Opening Day on April 24, Instructional League continued their clinics on their way to a May 1 Opening Day; and while the Farm League continued with their regular schedule, the Majors Division had a different kind of scheduling issue: Not enough players over April Vacation. Each of the six Majors teams has 12 players on the roster, more than enough to field a team with substitutions. But, this year, the Little League division found that many players and their families were traveling or resting or otherwise unavailable for the three scheduled regular season games.
The coaches and directors needed to make a decision: Cancel the games, have the games with “Call-up” players, or, do something different. NRLL enthusiastically decided to do something different.
NRLL decided to play a sandlot style format of games with the players who were available to play. And the results were fantastic for the first night. Everyone available to play came to the field, not knowing or understanding what the night would bring, and judging by the exciting baseball, the smiles and camaraderie during the game and the enthusiastic recap of the game as relayed from child to parent, it was a success.
There were enough players to field four teams on two fields. Catchers and pitchers were divided evenly, then the Orioles, A’s, Diamondbacks, Royals, White Sox and Angels were spread out over the four teams.
Field One had some strong performances on the mound from Owen Bouchie, Bruce McLaren, Taygen Colarusso and Alex Surette.
Jackson Kosinski started the night off by hitting in the lead-off spot for the visiting team and put in strong hits and base-running. Linus Pearsall took some shots at bunting to keep the infield on their toes while Thomas Gulloti shined in the field while trying some new positions. Asher Shulz showed his regular speed on the bases with heads-up base-running. Jacoby Coste-Trufant and Connor Downey had tough at-bats and showed themselves to be strong well-rounded baseball players with nice performances in the field as well.
There were also strong hitting performances from regular All-Stars like Cole Bakr, Ben Mahoney, Hendrik Schomp and Tyler Boviard who switched to the other side of the plate.
Field 2 saw a great back-and-forth between the two teams, where the visitors got off to a great start, giving Lucas Cabral support as he breezed through the first inning on the mound. The middle innings proved to be the most exciting part of the game with four lead changes, with great plays on both sides and great pitching from the Nelson boys, who faced off with one another for the first time at Benevento.
Exceptional speed on the bases from Kian Grabar and key hits by Scotty Costello, Damian and Vincent Pagliuca, Liam Higgins and Harry Agganis, hitting lefty for the first time, led the offensive charge for the two teams.
In the field, both teams made plenty of great plays led by Dante Montana, Rick Flaherty and Charlie Bebchick, highlighted by a 6-3 relay from the outfield by Evan Araniz to Harry Wells to cut down a run at the plate and keep the game close. Higgins also got in on the act with great stop at third base to save a run late in the game and Anthony Giordano made his first appearance on the mound and pitched well as the visiting team’s closer, holding the two teams to a tie score until this very exciting game was called due to darkness.
Field 1 never really kept score and everyone involved really never asked what the score was. It was just two groups of kids playing baseball, for the love of it.
