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New Canaan's timely hitting secures trip to World Series!

Posted by Richard Grenier on Jul 26 2008 at 05:00PM PDT
  New England Championship – Game Two:

 

 New Canaan, Connecticut 6 West Warwick, R.I. 2

            Led by the timely hitting of Zach Smith and Zach Allen, New Canaan held off a late sixth inning West Warwick rally and advanced to the 2008 Ten Year Old Cal Ripken World Series with a 6-2 victory.

            Zach Allen, the tournament Most Valuable Player, continued where he left off in game one, by shutting out West Warwick on one hit while striking out three in the first three innings of the game.  Allen (5-1 in the tournament) struck out 25 batters and gave up only five earned runs on seven hits in 17 innings of work.  In his nine innings of work against West Warwick, he allowed only two runs (one earned) on six hits while striking out 14.   

            Matt Grenier, who earned a victory against New Canaan on Tuesday night, pitched well for West Warwick.  In five innings of work, the right hander allowed no earned runs on five hits while striking out seven.  Grenier (2-1 in the tournament) struck out 18 batters and gave up only one earned run on eight hits in 11 innings of work.  In his nine innings of work against New Canaan, he limited their potent offense to seven runs (one earned) on seven hits while striking out 15.

            During the first two innings of play, the game remained scoreless with both Allen and Grenier giving up one hit a piece. 

In the bottom of the third inning, New Canaan made the most of their opportunities and took a 2-0 lead on one timely bloop hit, one walk, and one error.  Colin Tiller led off with walk, advanced to second on an error, and reached third on a passed ball.  With runners at second (Kyle Levasseur) and third (Tiller), Grenier struck out Zach Allen and got Alex LaPolice to pop up to first baseman, Tyler Boisclair, for the second out of the inning.  With two outs and two runners in scoring position, Zach Smith, who had robbed Grenier of an extra base hit in the top of the third inning on a catch at the fence in center field with one out and a runner at second base, blooped a two run single which fell in front of a charging West Warwick outfielder for a 2-0 lead.  After surrounding the two out single, Grenier struck out the next batter to end the inning.

After reliever David Giusti retired West Warwick on ten pitches in a 1-2-3 top of the fourth inning, New Canaan broke the game open with four runs on two hits, one error, and one walk after two outs were made in the bottom half of the inning.  After Giusti reached first on a two out error, Harry Molloy fouled off two pitches before reaching first base on a base on balls.  Kyle Levasseur, then, hit a bloop single to center which scored Giusti.  Next, Zach Allen, who had struck out three times in four previous at bats against Grenier, got the better of the West Warwick ace by sending a 1-1 pitch over the fence in left center for a three run home run and a 6-0 lead.

In the top of the sixth inning, West Warwick scored two runs on consecutive hits by Matt Grenier (single), Tyler Boisclair (single), and Trevor Lawton (two run single).  Giusti, however, retired the next three batters on groundouts and secured a trip to Abbeville, Louisiana for New Canaan.

Offensively for West Warwick, they received contributions from Grenier (1 for 2), Boisclair (1 for 3), one run scored), Lawton (1 for 3, 2 r.b.i.’s), Mitchell Moore (1 for 3), and Mike Pellerin (1 for 1).

New Canaan received hits from Kyle Levasseur (1 for 3, two runs scored and 1 r.b.i.), Zach Allen (1 for 3, one home run and 3 r.b.i.’s), Zach Smith (2 for 3, 2 r.b.i.’s), and Thomas Williams (1 for 3). 

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