ABW flips script, topples Mashpee

Last season, Archbishop Williams faced off against Mashpee in the semifinal round of the Division 4 South sectional and lost a one-run game.

This time around, the score was the same but the result altogether different.

The fourth-seeded Archies upset the No. 1 Falcons, 5-4, at Plymouth North to advance to the sectional final tomorrow at noon at Brockton’s Campanelli Stadium.

Archbishop Williams (18-5) already led 4-2 going into the fourth inning when pitcher Sam Hamer led off with a one-hopper off the wall in left-center field for a double. After two quick outs, Casey Earle smoked an RBI single up the middle off Mashpee pitcher Michael Fraser’s leg. Earle’s hot shot proved to be the game-winner.

“We’ve been preaching all year long to pitch to contact, we will make plays in the field, and our defense is really good,” Archies coach Jim Dolan said. “I always say we don’t necessarily have an ace, but we have six ‘twos’ and hey, we still get to play another game.”

Mashpee (20-3) answered Fraser’s big hit in the home half of the fourth by scoring a pair of runs and loading the bases with two outs for cleanup hitter Alex Morry. But Morry was left at the plate when the third out was recorded on an attempted steal of home.

“I thought he beat the throw, but you can’t change the call of the umpire and I just think it caught the ump by surprise, unfortunately,” Mashpee coach Dan Patenaude said.

Jared Marini came on for Hamer to start the fifth and pitched three scoreless innings, with four strikeouts, to close out the win. Marini did get himself into a jam in the seventh with a pair of twoout walks, but he wiggled out of trouble by getting a lineout to left field to end it.

“I knew I could keep them off-balance with the curve so I kept trying to work the edges and the outside part of the plate, but I wasn’t getting the calls,” Marini said. “Guys came up big hitting and especially defensively.”

Elsewhere in baseball tournament action:

Jason Shell and Jared Westgate had RBI triples in the third inning as No. 7 Upper Cape (17-6) advanced to the Div. 4 South finals with a 4-1 victory against No. 14 Cohasset.

‘I always say we don’t necessarily have an ace, but we have six “twos” and hey, we still get to play another game.’ — JIM DOLAN Archbishop Williams coach