Post 70 Falls Just Short in Loss to South Attleboro

Post 70's baseball luck hit a major snag last night, as the team’s valiant comeback fell short to South Attleboro, by a score of 14-12 at the Balch field, in the second round of the round robin sectionals tournament.

The five errors and ten walks allowed by the usually sure-handed Norwood infield and pitching staff, coupled with a six run eighth inning for South Attleboro, is what led to the demise of Post 70 last night.

“When you play a good team you can’t give them extra runs and base runners," said manager Paul Samargedlis.

With Norwood clinging on and only trailing by two runs in the bottom of the fifth, Jordan Davis knocked in a pivotal run with a two-out single to left, to make it a 6-5 game. It appeared as if Post 70 would be able to possibly pull this one off at the end.

But errors and Norwood’s relief pitchers having little or no experience this summer would prove costly in this four-hour marathon slugfest.

“We have a pop up at 6-5," said Samargedlis. "And we get out there with some momentum - but now it’s 8-5.”

South Attleboro capitalized on two, two-out errors by Post 70, to stretch their lead to 8-5, with Norwood well into their bullpen.

But the real damage came in the eighth when Norwood, on their third reliever of the night, allowed six runs on three errors to give South Attleboro a comfortable 14-6 lead.

But Norwood would not go quietly.

After Peter Kelly got on base, Sean Keady doubled and Chris O’Brien tripled to score two runs. John Gorman then singled in a run on a ball that fell just in front of South Attleboro right fielder “Skip” Flanagan. An Anthony Perriello RBI single put the score at 14-10 after eight with Norwood still breathing.

In the ninth Keady was able to breeze through the lineup to keep Norwood within striking distance.

On to the bottom of the ninth where PJ King led off with a walk. After a fielder’s choice, Keady walked, as did O’Brien to load the bases for leading hitter Gorman.

South Attleboro bought in 6’7” righty Eddie Fitzpatrick to face Gorman and hopefully shut the door on Post 70.

Gorman took the first pitch fastball and lined it up the middle for two runs and gave Norwood base runners on first and second with one out. After a ground out, Fitzpatrick loaded the bases with a walk to hot-hitting Perriello on four pitches, setting the stage for the final hitter with the winning run on first.

Fitzpatrick struck out the final hitter on four pitches and South Attleboro hung on for the win - advancing them to the winner’s bracket tomorrow night.

“Every good team has a run in them, you just run out of outs,” said Samrgedlis. “That’s what happened, we were one hit away.”

Next up for Norwood is Hingham at 4:00 p.m. at the Balch this afternoon, July 19.