Pioneers come back to win Brendan Grant Tourney

Published in the May 30, 2018 edition

By DAN PAWLOWSKI

LYNNFIELD — The LHS baseball team has been exceeding expectations all year. During a highly successful season in which the Pioneers are now 14-4, Lynnfield has faced every challenge with the same type of fearlessness and energy day in and day out.

Much of that mentality should be credited to the seven seniors: Zach Rothwell, Joey Mack, Dan Jameson, Michael Gerardi, Cooper Marengi, Nick Giammarco and Nick Torosian.

One of the many qualities that make these Pioneer leaders unique is their resiliency.

For example, Lynnfield hosted Newburyport on Tuesday, May 22 for Senior Day, and lost 8-2. It wasn’t a prototypical Lynnfield baseball game. But it was how they responded that will define this season.

THE PIONEERS pose with their Brendan Grant Tournament trophies after winning the championship against host Belmont, 7-6 on Saturday. (Courtesy Photo)

“We made a lot of mistakes today,” said head coach John O’Brien. “We made some errors, had a lot of double play balls that we didn’t capitalize on and the walks killed us.”

The seven walks really did hurt the Pioneers as the Clippers scored three runs in the 5th to take a 5-2 and buried the game in the 6th with three more runs, many of which a result of free passes.

Jameson had a nice poke to right for a triple to start the 3rd and would later score on a sac fly from Will Garofoli. Lynnfield got their second run in the 4th on an RBI single from Fernando Gonzalez to score Matt Fiore.

Regardless of the outcome, the main priority of the day was to celebrate this great group of seven.

“It’s a good group of kids,” said O’Brien. “They’ve been together for a while. They’ve come to play every game, and they worked hard in the offseason. They’re making the most of their opportunities; I think we just hit a little bit of a lull here and hopefully they’re going to be able to lead by example and finish strong. We have three games left; I’d like to win them all.”

Lynnfield played in the Brendan Grant Tournament in Belmont over the Memorial Day Weekend and left town with two one-run wins and a championship trophy.

How’s that for a response?

The Pioneers beat Burlington in the first game on Friday, 1-0. It was the 200th career win for O’Brien.

Gonzalez shut out the tough Red Devils in that one, allowing just two hits and striking out 13.

The Pioneers scored the only run in the bottom of the 4th when Cooper Marengi took advantage of a bad return throw from the catcher and broke for home.

The Lynnfield bats were more alive on Saturday as they held on to beat hometown Belmont as they won 7-6. A complete game recap will appear in next week’s Villager.

The Pioneers traveled to Amesbury on Tuesday after press time for their last regular season game. The seedings for the D3N tournament will be announced on Friday.