Pitching and defense
Lincoln rides strong pitching from Cucca to down Cumberland
WOONSOCKET — Lincoln Little League Jimmy Fund all-star coach Jason Oldham knew starting pitcher Evan Cucca was going to have a good day after the 9-year-old righty needed just five pitches to traverse the first inning of Friday night’s title game against rival Cumberland Little League.
Oldham didn’t realize Cucca was going to have a great day.
Cucca needed just 56 pitches – and some terrific defense from Luca Coppoli- no and Will Aiken – to pitch a complete-game four-hitter. Offensively, Cucca ended a four-run opening inning with a two-run single, while Michael Parisi scored a run in each of the first two innings to lead Lincoln to an 8-2 victory at Lajoie Field.
“When he got out of the first inning with five pitches, I knew he was looking to go the distance,” Oldham said a season after Lincoln lost in the final to Woonsocket Little League. “He threw strikes early and he just kept pounding [the strike zone].
“The other big thing is our defense made the plays that needed to be made. Whether it was in far territory or foul territory, we were going after the ball.”
The victory marks an impressive march through the losers’ bracket for a Lincoln team that dropped a 2-0 decision to Cumberland in the winners’ bracket final a week ago. After downing Burrillville, 8-1, behind an impressive pitching from Cucca and Austin Henault, Lincoln defeated Cumberland on back-toback days to regain the title.
Of course, Friday’s title is the first step in a journey that will take Lincoln to the 10-yearold District 4 tournament next summer. Lincoln hasn’t won a 10-year-old title since 2016.
“I’m not complaining at all, this feels good,” said Oldham, who shared the twoweek journey in Woonsocket with his son, Caden Oldham. “From the time that we had Little League tryouts until now, we’ve seen the kids transform into what they are today, which is good. At the end of the day, wins and losses are good, but to see the kids grow is a big part of being a coach.”
Cumberland received a pair of runs scored and a second-inning triple from starting pitcher Dylan Poloski, while Joe Terlato delivered a pair of RBIs. Tyler Reynolds and Matt Fontaine also had hits for the kids from Garvin Field.
Oldham said the biggest difference between Friday’s game and last week’s loss was Lincoln’s hitters were ready for Poloski’s fastball. The righthander threw harder than any other pitcher in the tournament, but Lincoln received first-inning hits from Parisi, Joey Cunha and Cucca.
“We had a ton of hitting-only practices and just had them hitting a ton of fastballs,” Oldham said. “We wanted to make sure the approach was a little bit different. We couldn’t fall behind in the count because we were going to get beat with a pitch that goes right by us. We had to get our load in early and jump on the first good pitch that we saw.”
Poloski hammered Cucca’s first pitch of the second inning to the fence in center for a triple and he scored two batters later on a Terlato single. Cumberland only advanced one more runner past first base when Poloski scored an unearned run in the fifth inning.
Lincoln scored its final four runs in the second inning thanks to hitting and Cumberland errors. Henault scored the inning’s first run thanks to four errors by the road side before RBIs from Coppolino, Parisi and Oldham. Colton Henderson, Sean McDonnell and Coppolino scored to increase the lead to 8-1. Cunha was the only Lincoln batter with two hits.
“I told the boys [after the first inning], we were in a good spot and right where we want to be,” Oldham said. “We hopped on them early and then good things were going to come our way.”
That was more than enough run support for Cucca, who set down six batters at one point in the middle of the game. In the final 11 innings of the title series, Lincoln allowed just one earned run to Cumberland thanks to the pitching efforts of Parisi and Cucca.
“We just had to regroup. It’s amazing to see the growth from the beginning of the allstar season until the end,” Oldham said. “We knew we needed to get the bats going a little bit quicker because we haven’t seen pitching like that when we faced to them and lost to them the first time around.”