RallyNorth.net

Andover High is picking the perfect time to play its best baseball. The Warriors made their first sojourn into the Spinner Cup tournament a championship one, holding off Dracut last night, 3-2, in a thriller. Junior Nate Bryant came up huge in relief, going 1.2 innings to lock up the win for gritty starter Bennett Deady. Andover picked up two runs in the first, both coming after two were out. Jake Ponti drove the first in with a double and Ned Deane chased him home with an RBI single. Christian Lightner drove home what proved to be the difference, singling home pinch-runner Greg Calabro, who took second after C.J. Leary's wall double. Senior John Hennessy earned the tourney MVP, and Ponti picked up the $500 scholar-athlete award for college.

Methuen High saw the potential bottom-of-the-seventh tying rally snuffed out by the toughest of tough calls - an appeal of a tag up at second base - and fell to Dracut, 7-6. With runners on second-and-third and no outs in the seventh, Chuck Prescott drove a deep sacrifice fly to make it 7-6 with a runner on third. But Dracut's appeal at second was awarded an out. "The runner was standing on the base, we all watched it. It was just a terrible, terrible call," said Ranger coach Dave Fabrizio. "The umpire said he never tagged up. Just terrible." Jared McAdam then followed with a single that would have tied it, but the Middies escaped further damage and prevailed.