ESSEX — Fall down, get back up again.
That just about sums up the Manchester Essex Mariners’ mentality, not only in Wednesday night’s Intertown Twilight League (ITL) Game 3 championship tilt, but all summer long.
The Mariners — who finished atop the league’s regular season standings and eliminated the four-time defending champion Hamilton Generals along the way — scrapped their way to victory on multiple occasions throughout the campaign. And in a potential title-clinching clash on their home field at Memorial Park, they did it again to hoist the trophy.
Trailing the Rowley Rams on three separate occasions throughout the evening, Manchester clawed its way back before walking it off in extra innings on an RBI single from Caulin Rogers for a thrilling 8-7 win.
The decisive, game-winning knock came in the eighth inning just before darkness and gave the Mariners their first ITL crown since 2021.
“It was everything and anything I could’ve asked for from all these guys. It took a total team effort for this one,” said Mariners manager Cory Burnham, his team making its 15th straight finals appearance this year before finally getting back over the hump. With the win, Manchester completed a 3-0 sweep of Rowley.
“This is what we do; we never quit,” he continued. “We played hard and that’s exactly what this team’s all about.”
Rallying from a three-run deficit to knot things up at 6-6 heading into the sixth, Manchester again fell behind by a run in the top of the frame on an errant pick off attempt that allowed Rams’ Curtis Putnam to score.
But they tied things back up at 7-7 in the bottom of the sixth as Rogers hit a sacrifice fly to right field.
Both teams then went down quick in the seventh, sending the game to extras where the Mariners worked their magic one more time.
Theo Masella started the party by reaching first on an infield single and promptly stealing second. Then with two outs, Kevin McKenna strung together a phenomenal at bat, nearly ending things with a hard hit ball down the third base line that bounced just foul, and ultimately reaching with a walk.
Rogers then stepped up to the plate and played hero, mashing one over the infield into shallow right to score Masella for the game-winning run.
“It’s poetic justice at its finest,” explained Burnham. “Kevin McKenna, generally a bench player all year, he gets the call tonight to go into this game, plays the majority of the game, then has a huge at bat to get on base. And then we get our veteran captain up in Caulin Rogers and he finishes the job. It’s everything we expect.”
The extra inning, walk-off victory was sweet in itself. But considering how things unfolded throughout the evening, it was that much sweeter if not improbable.
Manchester turned to their ace, Brett Moore, for the start. But he was uncharacteristically roughed up in the opening frame before exiting with an injury. It was an unfortunate start for the Mariners, who fell behind 4-0 after that top of the first thanks in large part to a 3-run bomb over the fence in left by the Rams’ Justin Ziolkowski.
Zach Abbott swiftly came on in relief and got his team out of the first inning before grinding his way through the remainder of the contest with aplomb. He had 1-2-3 frames in the second and third, and got out of the fourth clean with just one single allowed.
Rowley plated two in the fifth to take a 6-3 lead at the time; one via an RBI single from Aidan Gracey and another on a wild pitch. But all in all, Abbott was phenomenal on the bump and gave his team a chance all night.
He finished with four strikeouts while his defense backed him up with some great plays in the infield.
“He was awesome. All our pitchers are nails,” said Burnham. “They carried us all year. Some days we didn’t have all the bats, some days we did, but the pitchers always showed up, always had our backs, and in the end we ended up picking (Abbott) up tonight.”
Manchester had made it 4-2 in the bottom of the first on an RBI single from Caz Ostrowski and another single from Lukas Albano that allowed Ostrowski to cross home. The hosts then got it to 4-3 in the third on a sacrifice ground out from EJ Field to score Ostrowski.
Trailing 6-3 in the fifth, Rogers roped an RBI double to deep center and Albano added another RBI knock with a hard hit ball to left to cut the deficit to one. Field then hit a sac-fly to deep center to tie it.
Three comebacks in one game, the latter of which gave Manchester the championship sweep and an ever elusive title.
Not a bad way to finish.
“Super satisfying,” said Burnham. “It’s hard to come back (every year). We lost some guys, sometimes it takes years to rebuild but we just kept reloading and finally we got back on top.”
Manchester has now won 13 ITL championships since 2000, the most out of any team in the league. They won three straight from 2008-10, five in a row from 2012-16, won again in 2019 and most recently, 2021.
Sports Editor Nick Giannino may be contacted at 978-675-2712 or ngiannino@northofboston.com.
