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Masconomet's state title dreams dashed by unbeaten Plymouth North

Tuesday, June, 10 By Matt Williams
Staff writer

BRAINTREE | The smart money held that if a team was going to use a relentless, mashing offense and clutch hitting to win last night's Division 2 state semifinal between Masconomet and Plymouth North, it would be the Chieftains.

After all, the North champions had thrived on that exact philosophy all year long en route to racking up 194 runs and emerging among the Bay State's Final Four in Division 2.

But smart money is often way off base | and it was in this case. Instead, the undefeated South champion Blue Eagles turned the tables and ended the Chieftains' season with a 13-1 thrashing at windy Braintree High last night.

"We didn't get the timely hits and left a ton of guys on base. They did the exact opposite," said Masconomet coach Joe Marchesi, summing up a glum evening for his charges.

The score was lopsided not because Plymouth North pitcher Evan Martinsen was unhittable, but because he was unflappable. The Chieftains (19-6) had at least one baserunner in each of the seven innings and continually jabbed the Blue Eagles' hurler.

But they could never land so much as an uppercut, never mind the knockout blow. In all, Masco stranded 11 men and left the bases loaded twice.

"They got a lot of men on base, but I was able to work around it," said Martinsen, who improved to 7-0 on the season with a complete game, 116-pitch effort. He scattered seven hits, walked two and hit four batters while striking out seven.

It was Martinsen's deceptive curve that had the Chieftains off balance all night. It looked slow, but broke quickly and buckled a number of Masco batters.

"I lost (the curve) a bit in the middle innings," said Martinsen, whose curve harmlessly touched the shoetops of three of his four hit batsmen. "I was always able to get it back when I really needed it."

Having a gigantic lead certainly didn't hurt. The Blue Eagles (25-0) wasted no time jumping all over Masconomet senior southpaw Kyle Shepard. Junior third baseman Joe Flynn lifted a towering, 360-foot shot over the centerfield fence to give Plymouth North a 2-0 lead in the first inning.

Though they had all the runs they would need, the Blue Eagles decided to take some more for good measure. They batted around in the a third inning, highlighted by Keegen Grabhorn's bases loaded, three-run double.

All of a sudden the Chieftains were behind 7-0, Shepard was chased from the game, and the squad was in serious trouble.

"It was great to get a lot of breathing room and really pound the ball," said Plymouth North coach Dwayne Follette, whose team advances to Saturday's state title game (3:30 p.m.) at LeLacheur Park for the first time. They'll face Central Mass. champion Auburn, which beat Hoosac, 10-3, in last night's other state semifinal.

Try as they might, the Chieftains could never get untracked offensively. Captain Cam Greeley (4 for 4) scored on a James Riordan shot in the bottom of the fifth, but Shepard was gunned down trying to score and what could have been a rally was erased.

"If we had been able to get couple of hits here or there, we'd have been chasing a couple of runs instead of 12. But that's baseball. The timely hitting wasn't there," said Marchesi.

Plymouth North struck again in the next frame. It was deja vu for Grabhorn (3 for 4, 7 RBI), who repeated his earlier feat with another bases loaded, bases-clearing shot that had the sizable Blue Eagle student crowd on hand chanting his name.

"Having that big lead really helped keep me settled down so I could just attack their hitters," said Martinsen, who has 16 career wins.

To their credit, the Chieftains never stopped trying to make things interesting. They put two men on in the bottom of the sixth, only to strand them both. They also had a runner reach in the bottom of the seventh before Martinsen froze Riordan with | appropriately | a curveball to end the game.

"His off-speed stuff was on us all day," Marchesi said. "He was able to throw it for strikes and had a sneaky little fastball he could come back on us with, too. We were off balance."

It was only the third time this season that Masconomet's powerful offense was held to one run or less. Even tougher to swallow was the fact that a Plymouth North attack that had scored a total of 20 runs in winning the Division 2 South tournament nearly equaled that number in one night.

It was the first time all year the Chieftains allowed the opposition to score double digits.

"Every game we had played to this point was close," said Follette. "We love having all that breathing room, but it was a bit anti-climactic."

It was certainly anti-climactic for a Masco team that won its first sectional crown in eight years.

The Chieftains return a strong cast next season, but say good-bye to Greeley, Shepard, Riordan and Dan Duval | the latter of whom was charged with four runs in 2<2/3> innings of relief work.

"I told these guys that they have nothing to hang their heads about," said Marchesi, "especially the older guys. This is all about them | it was their team."

Additional stories:

• On this night, Masco couldn't find a way to get offensive