St. John’s Prep unseats reigning baseball champ Lincoln-Sudbury

SUDBURY — All afternoon, the stars appeared aligned for St. John’s Prep senior Sam Belliveau. The next thing you know, he and his Eagles teammates were battling for their tournament lives.

Belliveau retired the first 17 Lincoln-Sudbury batters and took a no-hitter and a comfy four-run lead into the seventh inning in Monday’s Division 1 North baseball final, but had to work out of a major jam in the final frame, getting a 4-6-3 double play with the bases loaded to preserve a 4-2 victory and dethrone the reigning champion Warriors.

It is the first sectional crown for St. John’s Prep since 2010, but with an asterisk attached as the Eagles have been a Super 8 participant in each of the last six postseasons, making the final on four different occasions. They will play the Div. 1 South champ, either Franklin or Xaverian, in the state semifinals on Wednesday.

“We’ve been gone for eight years. It’s weird,” said St. John’s Prep coach Dan Letarte of returning to Div. 1 North with no Super 8 this year. ”It’s almost like moving out of the neighborhood and moving back. Like buying your parent’s house, that’s what it felt like.”

No. 4 SJP (14-3) built a 4-0 lead on the strength of a pair of long balls as Pat D’Amico drilled Robbie O’Connor’s first pitch of the game over the left field fence and Kyle Webster had a two-run blast to right as part of the three-run fourth.

But with Belliveau bidding for a no-no, the second-seeded Warriors bats awoke in the seventh. Connor Peek led off with a solid single and Thomas Rogers drove him home with a double to make it 4-1.

An error and a hit batter later — the fourth controversial is-it-or-isn’t-it HBP call of the game, all of which went against the Eagles — left the bases loaded with no one out.

Belliveau reached back and got a strikeout for the first out then induced what looked like a tailor-made double play to end it, but it was booted, cutting the lead to 4-2 and keeping the bases full. He regrouped to get a carbon copy on the next pitch and this time Payton Palladino and DJ Pachecho turned it to deliver the title.

“My pitch count was down and I still felt great, but I was kind of adjusting to runners on bases and it took a little longer than usual,” said Belliveau. “But I kept going and the defense made some great plays at the beginning and turned that big double play at the end so I’m thankful for them.”

The right-hander was a beneficiary of some tremendous glovework to keep the perfect game intact for 5 2/3 as Pachecho made a diving play at short in the second, Shane Williams raced in to make a sliding catch in center in the fifth, and Webster made two slick shorthops on low throws to first.

The perfect game ended when an inside pitch nicked No. 9 hitter Evan Munuz with two outs in the bottom of the sixth. Belliveau finished a two-hitter, striking out 10 and walking one.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/35YYwhY