Dossas leads Ashland to MIBL title
QUINCY — At the beginning of the summer, Ashland had aspirations of claiming titles en route to a Legion World Series appearance.
That wouldn’t come to fruition with the legion season being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Ashland still secured a championship that was just as gratifying Friday night.
Behind a strong pitching performance from Tyler Dossas, who tossed a complete-game and allowed no earned runs while also recording three hits at the plate, top-seeded Ashland won the inaugural Massachusetts
Independent Baseball League title with a 7-1 victory over No. 3 Medfield at Adams Field.
“We came in, we set goals and the goal was this,” said Ashland manager Jake Obid. “This group came together and they worked on one common goal and they did something special and that’s something to be really, really proud of.”
Ashland’s bats broke out for 10 hits in the title bout after Medfield stymied Ashland’s offense the previous night to force a winner-take-all game.
The bottom third of Ashland’s lineup produced five RBI as Nick Calabrese’s two-run double down the right field line staked Ashland to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning.
Leading 2-1 in the fifth,
Ashland created separation by scoring on an error before Kevin Balewicz delivered the big hit of the inning with a two-run triple into the right-center field gap. Balewicz then scored on Nick Larche’s sacrifice fly for a 6-1 lead.
“I know we all have bats and we just needed them to get hot and once they got hot we knew what was going to happen,” said Jackson Hornung.
The cushion was more than enough for Dossas, who pitched to contact and scattered six hits. Dossas got stronger as the game went on by retiring seven of the final eight batters he faced and coming through in a big game took on even more meaning as he dedicated the win to his grandmother, Sandy, who passed away last week.