Burrillville 10s bounced
Continental American scores 10 runs in fifth inning
LINCOLN — Burrillville 10-year-old all-star coach Frank Castellone went into the state tournament knowing his two talented starting pitchers – Rodney Frenette and Kyle Castellone – would keep the squad in games.
The concern for Castellone was what would happen when the state’s three other district champions forced Burrillville to go to its bullpen?
In Tuesday’s losers’ bracket semifinal against Warwick Continental American, Kyle Castellone held the District 3 champions to just two runs through four innings, but Castellone ran out of gas in the fifth inning and Continental American took advantage. Three Burrillville pitchers allowed 10 runs in a marathon fifth inning, as the District 4 champions saw their summer come to an end with a 12-4 defeat at Lincoln’s Randy Hien Field.
“We just ran out of gas and ran out of pitching,” Castellone said. “I probably left my Kyle in there a few batters too long, but he was the person I had to go with. He’s our starter and we’re going to go as far as kids like him take us. As soon as we took Kyle out, it got tough for us. I’m really proud of the kids because they fought hard. We come from a small town and we’ll be back.”
As painful as the fifth inning was for the kids from Peck Field, the reality is no Burrillville 10-year-old squad had won a District 4 title prior to last Saturday’s 10-5 victory over Smithfield. And, the district title was the league’s first since the Major Division squad advanced to Hien Field to play in the state tournament in 2012.
The good news for Castellone is the 10-year-old tournament is just a stepping stone to bigger tournaments at the district and state level.
“We really did play well in this tournament outside of one inning,” Castellone said. “As I said before, we picked 11 kids out of the 15 we had to chose from.
“We told the kids at the end of the game in our little meeting that there are three steps to this – the 10s, 11s and then the 12s. We took a terrific first step. This is the beginning of the journey and not the end. We’re very, very proud of this team. We’re only going to get better.”
Burrillville, which dropped a 4-1 decision to District 2 champion Barrington late Monday night, produced three hits and four runs against four Continental American hurlers. Diminutive eight-year-old catcher Adam DeCesare had a hit and an RBI, while Castellone produced a hit and a run scored. Both batters, along with Frenette and Dylan LaFleur, used wood bats throughout the tournament.
“We worked a lot with aluminum bats and the kids spent the money on expensive bats, but we went back to the drawing board and they used what they were comfortable with,” Castellone said. “We’ll see what happens. I don’t think you get much out of the new USA bats anyway.”
Burrillville opened the scoring in the first inning when Castellone singled, stole second and eventually scored on a wild pitch. Warwick starting pitcher Nick Stevens tied the game in the third inning when he hit an RBI double to left field. Continental American took its first lead on a Charles Brown RBI single in the fourth.
The home side answered with three runs in the fourth inning to take a 4-2 advantage. Special pinch runner Logan Gomez, LaFleur (walk) and centerfielder Ian Oliver (walk) all scored. Mason Moore and shortstop Chase Ga- vis picked up RBIs on fielder’s-choice efforts against Brown.
Castellone succumbed to exhaustion in the fifth inning, with all four batters he faced reaching base and scoring runs. LaFleur came in and pitched a third of an inning before Gavis finished the game. Stevens punctuated the 10-run inning with a two-run double to center.
Eddie Politelli, Joey Rivera and Stevens all scored two runs in the victory, while Politelli earned the win after allowing just one run in 1.2 innings of work.
“We need a couple more pitchers, so we need a couple of kids to develop a little bit more,” Castellone said. “Baseball is a game of repetition, so they need to play more. You can’t expect to exceed at this level in just Little League.”