Townies complete the comeback for second straight ITL crown
By Nick Curcuru
After the Rockport Townies’ Game 4 win over the Manchester Essex Mariners in the ITL Finals, manager Jay Pallazola still felt that his offense had yet to arrive in the series.
In Monday’s winner-take-all Game 5 at Memorial Field, the Townies offense arrived early and often. Rockport jumped out of the gates for four runs in the top of the first inning and never looked back in an 11-3 win to clinch the Intertown Twilight Baseball League championship for the second season in a row.
Rockport finished off an impressive and improbable comeback on Monday as it trailed 2-0, while being outscored 19-3, after the first two games of the series only to rip off three straight wins to clinch the championship against a team that entered the series having lost just three games all season.
“We came out hitting today and that was the key,” Pallazola said. “When we are on our game we are unstoppable and we showed it tonight. Our hitting finally came around in the playoffs and it was at the most important time.”
The Townies took control of the game before a Mariner even stepped foot in the batters box thanks to four runs in the top of the first inning.
Alex Webb’s double down the right field line got them started and he was driven in one batter later when Mike Emerson blooped a double to right field to make it 1-0. Two batters later, Nolan Webb singled in Emerson for a 2-0 Townies lead and, Kyle Nelson delivered another big blow in the form of a two-out, two RBI bloop double down the right field line to give Rockport a 4-0 lead.
“That was basically the difference in the game right there,” Pallazola said. “It got us up and it got them pressing a little bit. But we knew it was far from over, not against a team like the Mariners. They’re in the finals every year for a reason.”
The Mariners got on the board in the bottom of the second when Johnny Wilcox singled in Mike Cain, who doubled. But the Townies answered back with two more runs of their own in the top of the fourth inning on an Emerson RBI single and a Nolan Webb sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 6-1.
Manchester Essex, however, was not going down with out a fight as it started to mount a bit of a comeback in the bottom of the fourth.
Cain’s solo shot to left cut the deficit to 6-2 and Paul Crehan later singled in Wilcox, who reached on an error, to make it 6-3.
That’s when Pallazola made a pitching change, going to 16-year-old right hander Ryan Webb in relief of starter MacKenzie Quinn, who was gutsy in 3 2/3 innings as he has been battling a back injury in recent weeks.
With the bases loaded and the heart of the order coming up for the Mariners, Ryan Webb got a big strikeout to end the threat. He would take that momentum into the next three innings as he did not allow a run, or a hit, in 3 1/3 innings out of the bullpen.
“I just knew I had to stop them (in that fourth inning) or it could have gotten out of hand,” Ryan Webb said. “I had to come up big and I just came out firing. The ump was calling the outside corner all night so I kept going there.”
Ryan Webb worked around a pair of two-out errors to get out of the fifth unscathed, and the Townie bats put the game away in the top of the sixth with a two-run shot from Jordan Pallazola and a solo homer from Dylan Maki to extend the lead to 11-3.
A RBI triple from Alex Webb, who had three hits and scored three runs, was followed by a RBI single from Emerson, who had three hits and drove in three runs, to cap the scoring at 11-3.
“I know the bats are going to be there for me every time I go out there, it does a lot for your confidence,” Ryan Webb said.
The right hander recorded the final out of the game on a line drive to second base to finish off the championship.
Over the last two seasons, the Townies have been impossible to kill as they are 8-0 in elimination games en route to back-to-back championships.
“It says a lot about this team,” Pallazola said. “Once we settle in and play the way we are capable of playing we are so tough to beat. This was a clutch team that got it done in the big moments.”
