WESTFIELD – The Westfield Technical Academy High School baseball team is moving onward and upward.
No. 15 Westfield Technical Academy turned back No. 18 Maynard in the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division V baseball Round of 32 baseball tournament game, 6-2, Monday at Bullens Field.
Westfield Tech pitcher Antonio Simpson scattered seven hits, one walk, one hit batter, and two runs, while striking out five in a complete game effort. He helped himself out at the plate, going 2-for-3 with three RBIs and a run scored.
Maynard (13-7) stranded nine base runners.
“The details matter, execution matters, and really when it comes down to it we’ve got to be able to execute and our defense came up big with some real timely plays, kept their offense kind of quiet or at least away from any potential rally which could have been trouble for us,” Westfield Technical Academy baseball coach Matt Boulanger said. “I give our team a lot of credit for hanging in there and being prepared mentally and physically ready to go.”
Simpson first delivered on the mound, stringing together four shutout innings to begin the game. He went to work immediately in the first, striking out Maynard’s lead-off hitter, inducing a pop fly, and then, after a Max Cedeno single, struck out the visitor’s clean-up batter, Liam Lawton, to end the inning.
Simpson proved equally effective on the base paths, drawing a leadoff walk to begin the home half of the first inning, stealing second and third bases (the latter on a Josh Elmer one-out walk), and, with runners at the corners, scored on a ground out from Luke Cummings.
“My mindset always stays the same,” Simpson said. “When I’m on the mound, I just try to throw strikes and let my defense do the work. …I really just try to make the biggest impact I can at the plate. On the bases, I’m trying to think of what I can do that can benefit the team.”
Westfield Tech (16-3) increased its lead to 3-0 with a two-out, two-run rally in the second inning. Jack Hall reached on a hit by pitch. Adam Galczynski hit a ball through the right side of the infield for a base hit. Both base runners advanced two bags with a passed ball and wild pitch with the wild pitch scoring a run. Simpson followed with a bloop single to shallow right field, scoring the inning’s second run.
Westfield Tech doubled its lead in the fourth inning.
With one out, Logan Csekovsky singled. Hall and Galczynski walked to load the bases. Simpson drove in two runs with a sharp hit single through the right side. Elmer walked to load the bases again. An infield error allowed the third run of the inning to cross home plate.
Simpson kept Maynard at bay through each of the first four innings, leaving a runner in scoring position in each of those innings.
In the second inning, Eddie O’Rourke reached on an infield error to begin the inning and stole second base. Simpson retired the next three batters (by strikeout, flyout, and ground out) to end the inning. In the third, Will Molloy hit a two-out single for Maynard and Cedeno walked. Again, Simpson got out of the jam, forcing a ground out to squash the threat. O’Rourke reached again in the fourth with a lead-off double, but Simpson escaped with three straight outs, two fly balls sandwiched around a strikeout.
“When the opportunity is called you never know when you need to be ready to go,” coach Boulanger said in describing his team’s defense. “They came up big with some great defensive plays and bailed Antonio out in instances that were … potential rally-building plays. We kind of squashed them.”
Maynard finally cracked the goose egg on the scoreboard in the fifth inning with a two-out RBI single from Liam Lawton. Again, the visitors left two runners on base. Through five innings, they stranded seven base runners.
With two runners on in the sixth, Maynard added one run on a Tommy Lawton RBI single. A heads-up play by Elmer at shortstop kept the damage limited to one run by throwing out the runner at third base, who overran the bag and failed to get back in time. Westfield Tech third baseman Lucas Cummings applied the tag.
“That’s the definition of heads-up baseball,” Boulanger said in describing the tag out. “That’s a big play. … [If that doesn’t happen] then you’ve got second and third with two outs and if another batter singles that could be all the difference because you’re looking at a 6-5 game.”
Simpson closed out the game by retiring three of the next four Maynard batters.
Westfield Tech outfielder Jack Hall recorded the first out of the seventh inning with a diving catch in left field, tumbling and rolling backwards, all while holding onto the ball. Cedeno singled in the next at-bat. A fly out and ground out ended the game.
Westfield Tech advances to play No. 2 English High (18-5) on the road in Boston in the Round of 16 on Wednesday, June 4 at 3 p.m.
“We just need to continue to do what we’ve been doing all season – play with confidence, execute offensively, defensively, and like I told the guys ‘it doesn’t matter what the team is we’re playing next, what the seeding is, who it is, we ought to have a mentality where it’s anywhere, anytime, anyplace, in terms of how we play and it doesn’t matter really who the opponent is, we just got to be prepared.”
