13 Year Old All-Star Game Summaries

Westbrook 13s heading for states

By CJ Lampman
Sports Reporter

WESTBROOK AND SCARBOROUGH (July 27, 2006): Less than a year ago, Sean Murphy was playing in nationally-televised baseball games. He was part of the Westbrook team that competed in the Little League World Series. He was on ESPN.

Murphy knows what pressure feels like.

So when he came to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning of Saturday’s District 6 Babe Ruth baseball 13-year-old championship game against Scarborough, Murphy knew what he needed to do. And he did it.

Westbrook’s starting right fielder delivered the game-winning hit to lift a team that is mostly made up of last summer's New England Little League champions to its second straight District 6 title. Westbrook beat Scarborough, 2-1, and moved on to the state tournament.

“It’s pretty much all the same kids who went down to Williamsport last year,” said Westbrook coach Mike Russell. “We added a few kids for depth. It’s just a great group of kids. They know how to play in big games, and they don’t get nervous in these 1-1 games and 2-1 games.”

Aside from the knowledge that has been gained through experience, though, this year’s Westbrook team doesn’t think too much about last year.

“We just take it game-by-game and take it in stride,” said Murphy.

Scarborough may not have the same kind of resume, but it was approaching the game the same way. On July 17 the same two teams met, and Westbrook won, 2-1. Using that experience, but also moving past it, Scarborough went into Saturday’s game knowing that it was capable of winning and forcing a winner-take-all game.

The game plan was simple.

“I figured we wouldn’t have a prayer to steal a base unless we got lucky,” said coach Scott Curit. “So we were going to have to move guys around. Try to be aggressive, play small ball, move some runners around and hope they make some mistakes.”

Westbrook made a mistake in the top of the third inning, and Scarborough capitalized to go up, 1-0.

Cam Brown led off with a single to left field. The next batter, Paul Reny, attempted a sacrifice bunt, but Westbrook pitcher Scott Heath fielded the ball cleanly and got the lead runner, Brown, at second.

It didn’t matter when Ryan Curit doubled Reny to third. Kyle Piscopo followed with a cue shot to first. Joey Royer fielded the ball, but went home with it instead of taking the sure out at first.

Reny scored easily, and there were now runners at first and third. Heath worked his way out of the jam, though, by getting a strikeout and a groundout to end the inning.

Crisis averted.

“Our pitchers did a great job, throwing strikes, getting out of the tough situations and just getting the outs,” said Murphy.

That made it so the Westbrook offense could stay patient. The hits weren’t coming in the early going off of Scarborough starter Jamie Ross, but Westbrook remained confident.

“This is too good of a hitting team to not eventually get a hit through or something to go their way,” said Russell.

In the bottom of the fourth, things did go Westbrook’s way. Zach Gardner walked to lead off the inning, then stole second and moved to third on a sacrifice groundout by Zach Collett. Gardner scored when Nick Finocchiaro’s grounder slipped under the glove of the shortstop, Reny.

Just like his counterpart did in the top of the third, though, Ross was able to wiggle his way out of the jam and limit the scoring to just one run. Catcher Zack Bean saved the day when he tagged pinch runner Jarred Martin during a failed suicide-squeeze attempt.

“In all-stars it’s pitching and defense,” said Curit. “It’s not typically a lot of offense as a rule of thumb. We played defense, they played defense. We didn’t make a play, they didn’t make a play. It just could’ve went either way, the whole game.”

Eventually, it went for Westbrook.

Scarborough threatened with back-to-back hits by Steve Hodge and Brown to start the top of the seventh, but relief pitcher Zach Gardner didn’t let either runner score.

Westbrook loaded the bases with a single, a bunt and an intentional walk in the bottom of the inning. Heath made the first out before Murphy came to the plate and delivered a seeing-eye-single to right field.

“It was all defense today,” said Murphy. “The offense was definitely not as good, but everyone knew it was going to come around.”

RECAP OF DIST 4 13 YEAR OLD PLAY OFFS

Westbrook Vs South Portland (GAME 1)

Westbrook had their hands full in their first game of the districts, facing the multi-town team from Scarborough, Cape, Southportland, & Falmouth. With two outs in the first inning, Mike Mowatt stepped to the plate and hit a single to left, followed by a Zach Collett double, to drive in the run and give Westbrook a 1 run lead. Scott Heath took the mound for Westbrook and really kept the there hitters off balance, with some outstanding pitching. Westbrook allowed 1 unearned run, in the 2nd inning off an error. Scotty went 4 strong innings, giving up 4 hits while striking out 5 and only walking 1 before he was forced to leave the game, after being hit with by a Ross fastball in the top of the 5th inning.

In the top of the 5th inning, with the game tied at 1, Shawn Murphy was called in to pinch hit and he came up big, with a lead off double which sparked the team and brought the fans to there feet. With Shawn on second, with 1 out, Scotty came to the plate and got hit by the pitch. Trever Clouarte came in to pinch run for Scotty and after a fielder’s choice from Mike Mowatt, both runners advanced to 2nd and 3rd. With 2 out, Zach Collectt steps to the plate and is given the “take” sign, from the 3rd base coach, and on that pitch, the ball skidded by the catcher and Shawn Murphy ran home, on the pass ball to give Westbrook a 2-1 lead. With Scott on the bench, the Westbrook coaches handed the ball over to Shawn to finish out the game on the mound. With 3 innings of ball left to play, the Westbrook defense stepped up. Shawn got 6 of the last 9 batters to ground out to the infield, struck out 2, and walked 1, which was thrown out, trying to steal second, by Nick Finocchiccio. The game ended 2-1 with a Westbrook victory!

Westbrook Vs Gorham (GAME 2)

After a great outing in his first game, Shawn Murphy got the call to start the second game against Gorham. Gorham advanced in the winner’s bracket by beating Portland 11-10. Shawn pitched 4 innings, facing only 3 extra batters, giving up 0 runs and only 3 hits and 1 walk. Joey Royer replaced Shawn, in the 5th inning, and picked up right where he left off, striking out the first 2 batters he faced; then hit the next batter and struck out the next batter, to end the inning. Joey got into a little bit of trouble in the 6th inning, by walking a batter, then hitting one, with a pitch and the 3rd batter reaching on an error. Bases were loaded with no outs, Joey regrouped his thoughts and went on to get the next two batters to pop out to the infield and ended the inning with a 1-3 put out and gave up 0 runs. Joey ended the game with 4 strikeouts, 1 walk, 2 hit batters, and 0 runs scored. Westbrook pitching proved to be too much for the Gorham team. The Westbrook offense produced 8 hits (3 of the 8 being doubles). Mutable hits from Tommy Lemay & Scott Heath both had 2 hits and scored 2 runs each. RBI’s came from Heath (2), Z Gardner (2), and the game ended 8-0 with a Westbrook victory! Westbrook will now wait for the winner of the Gorham and South Portland game, with the winner having to beat Westbrook twice.

Westbrook Vs South Portland (GAME 3)

South Portland advanced to the finals, to face Westbrook, after crushing Gorham 13-0 in a game shortened by the “10 Run Rule”. South Portland will have to beat Westbrook twice to claim the district Championship and move onto the States.

Just like the first meeting, this was a battle between the pitchers. Heath was called on from Westbrook and the Ross kid for South Portland ~ a rematch of game 1. After 2 no hit, scoreless innings from SP they drew first blood, by pushing a run across the plate in the 3rd inning. Not phased by the run, Scott continued to pitch well giving up only 2 hits, 2 walks, and 1 run in 5 innings of play. It wouldn’t take long for Westbrook to even things out in the 4th inning. Zach Gardner lead off, with a walk, stole second, and then Nick Finocchiaro single scored, to even out the game at one apiece. That would be all the scoring for a while. With Zach Gardner relieving Heath from the mound, in the 6th inning, got his 1st batter to “fly” out to center field, then gave up a single, to the next batter. He got his 3rd batter to ground out, then struck out the 4th batter, to end the inning. In the bottom of the 6th inning, Westbrook was able to get the bat on the ball, but all 3 batters popped out to the outfield, that was playing an over shift on us the entire game, to end the inning. Down to the last inning. At the top of the 7th, South Portland started off with a single to the left side, followed by another single to center field, with the base runner trying to reach 3rd on the single, and was gunned down, with an outstanding cut off relay to third, for the first out of the inning. With a runner at 1st and 1 out, the next batter hit an infield ground out, moving the runner over to second, in scoring position. With 2 outs and one of South Portland’s better hitters at the plate and 1st base open, Westbrook decided to walk the batter, to give a force play at any base. The # 3 batter comes to the plate 2 outs 2 men on top of the 7th and Zach Gardner worked the count to his favor, so with 2 balls and 2 strikes on the batter, he was able to strike out the batter with an outside corner fastball to end the inning! That strike out got the Westbrook boys going. Needing only 1 run in the bottom of the 7th,,for the victory and to advance to the States. The stage was set. Mike Mowatt stepped to the plate and got a single into left field. Westbrook then decided to pinch hit for Joey Royer and bring in their bunt specialist, Reid Coulombe. On the 3rd pitch, Reid was able to lay down the sacrifice bunt, to push Mowatt over to 2nd and into scoring position. The bunt was perfect. Mowatt was already on second, before the pitcher got the ball, and was heading to 3rd. Instead of going to first, for the sure out, the pitcher thought he could get the lead runner going to third, and he would have had it, had it not been for Mowatt realizing there was no way he was going to make it to 3rd. The pitcher threw the ball to third and Mowatt put the brakes on about 10 feet from the base and headed back to second, with no one covering 2nd base and being a fast base runner, he was able to get back to the base. Runners on 1st & 2nd, no outs, Tommy Lemay at the plate, 1st pitch was a pass ball & both runners advanced to 2nd & 3rd. South Portland then decided to walk Lemay and load the bases, to have a force play, at any base. Scott Heath comes to the plate and on 3 tough pitches, strikes out. Bases loaded, with 1 out, Shawn Murphy steps to the plate, after struggling at the plate his first two at bats, ripped a hard hit ball, to the right side of the infield. Lemay jumping over the ball as he runs to second, the second baseman was unable to handle the ball and Mowatt crosses the plate for the winning run. Westbrook wins the districts 4 championships and is heading to the States. Our first game is Thursday at 230pm at Memorial field in Skowhegan! Go Westbrook!