Blakemore, bats too much for Paul Cuffee
PROVIDENCE — The one guarantee in Saturday morning’s Division III losers’ bracket final between the No. 4 North Smithfield and Paul Cuffee baseball teams was lots of runs.
In each of the squads’ pair of regular-season contests, they combined for 18 runs.
Saturday, the Northmen scored 18 on their own.
North Smithfield senior first baseman Jacob Forbes went 1for-3 with three RBIs and two runs, while Adam Blakemore pitched a complete-game and aided his own cause with two hits and four runs scored in an 18-8 victory at Rhode Island College.
“Carlos Pena is a great pitcher and we struggled against him earlier and they threw a different guy (Jose Tirado) at us and we just start- ed hot,” Blakemore said, after allowing just four earn runs and eight hits while striking out seven. “We were batting first, so we’re pretty dangerous when we hit first. Us batting first and us getting a couple of early hits set the stage for this.”
“That’s it, you want to score early against a team like them because they never give up,” North Smithfield coach Jon Leddy said. “Even in that last inning when we were up 13, they just kept battling. Getting that early lead really settled us down.”
North Smithfield (15-5) will be back at Rhode Island College today to play its third consecutive elimination game, against Classical. If the No. 2 Purple prevail, then they will win their first division title of any kind since claiming the 1979 Division II title.
The Northmen will send senior righty Chris Matulaitis to the mound and Leddy knows his team will have to play better than it did Saturday. The Northmen committed infield errors in a two-run Navigator first inning and a three-run fifth inning.
“It happened against Central Falls the other day and it happened today, so it’s something we know we need to tighten up a bit if we are going to win,” Leddy said of the miscues.
“We beat Classical the first time by 10 and then we lost to them the second time,” Blakemore said. “I have no idea who we’re going to face, but I really think that we’re going to have to string together some hits and jump all over them.”
Paul Cuffee (14-5) entered the tournament as the top seed, but the Navigators followed up a winners’ bracket semifinal win over the Northmen with back-to-back losses to the Purple and Northmen. Saturday, shortstop Martin Araujo scored three runs and pitched five innings of relief. Catcher Sammy Diaz and Tirado each scored two runs. Tirado added two RBIs and two hits.
Tirado ran into trouble before he recorded two outs. Following a Matulaitis leadoff single, Blakemore (single), Forbes (two-run single), Jack Losardo (RBI single) and Devin Albino (RBI single) all recorded hits and scored runs to put the Northmen up 5-0 before Blakemore threw a pitch.
“We definitely hit the ball great and we strung together six hits in the first inning,” Leddy said. “We just kept a good approach at the plate early on and we kept going.”
Blakemore should’ve walked off the mound after the first inning without allowing a run, but an error on a bloop to second base by Dias led to RBI singles by Tirado and Charos Pena.
Tirado was pulled after allowing the first four batters of the second inning to reach base. Aruajo entered the game, but he gave up an RBI single to Trevor Pascoe and a bases-loaded walk to Michael deRonde to put the Northmen up 9-1.
Blakemore cruised through the second and third innings and it appeared if the Northmen could add a few runs before the fifth inning, he could keep his pitch count under 75 and be available for the if-necessary title game Tuesday night at RIC.
As it was, an error in the fifth inning allowed Paul Cuffee to score three runs, two of which were unearned, to make the score 12-5.
“I definitely found a rhythm and I definitely worked on my stride a little more,” said Blakemore, who has all three of his team’s playoff wins. “I went with a shorter stride so I could aim the ball better and I threw my curveball a little more. It’s hot and I have a headache, so it was tough to stay focused, but we did the job. We did what we need to do.”
Araujo and reliever Henry Abad struggled to throw strikes in the seventh inning, which allowed the Northmen to score six runs on just three hits. Dan Beauchemin had two hits in the inning, as he scored a run and drove in a run. Forbes and Losardo both had a run and an RBI in the marathon inning.