RallyNorth.net

North Andover, Flinn run past Reading

Saturday, May, 31 By Jeff Hamrick

READING — Turns out North Andover's biggest run of the season not only didn't include a base hit, it required just one ball put in play — one which traveled fewer than 20 feet at that.

Two days after his bat helped propel the 12th-seeded Scarlet Knights into yesterday's Division 2 North Sectional quarterfinals, Austin Flinn used his legs to push North Andover into a second consecutive upset with a 5-4 victory over fourth-seeded Reading.

The winning rally began with Flinn leading off the sixth with a strikeout, but the senior took advantage of a passed ball with a quick run up the line. That was just the beginning of the No. 9 hitter's mad dashes, however. Three pitches later when Brendan Parisotto laid down his perfect sacrifice bunt, Flinn took advantage of an empty third base, never stopping at second for the two-base advance. A few pitches after that, it was a wild pitch that brought the quick-footed Flinn home.

"Anyway I can get on, I'll take," said Flinn, who delivered a crucial ninth-inning double in a first round victory over fifth-seeded Winchester. "Then I knew (Parisotto) was going to bunt me over if I got on. While I was running to second, I saw that no one was at third and I'm a pretty fast kid, so I thought I'd try it. It was really close, but it worked out in my favor."

Flinn was forced to make a nice, face-first slide at third under the watchful eyes of Knights' coach Todd Dulin.

"We work on that almost every day," Dulin said of Flinn's heads-up running.

The Knights took a 2-0 lead in the first on Jake Caporale's two-run single and tied the score with a pair in a third inning that included a double by Stephen Borzi.

Tyler Lee survived a first inning that included a grand slam bomb by Liam Kenneally to go the distance, allowing five hits with two walks and three strikeouts. After the shaky start, Lee (3-2) allowed just one runner past first.

"I was still confident (after the first)," said Lee, who needed a mere 51 pitches the final six innings. "I was a little nervous going into the game, but I knew I had to keep going and get my team back in the game. I'm not going to strike a lot of guys out, so I know I'm going to get a lot of fly balls, a lot of ground balls."

Yesterday was heavy on the flies, as the infield had only three assists — one of them on a grounder to second baseman Chris Bosco for Reading's first out of the game and another by Lee on a sacrifice bunt in the fourth.

That left a superb outfield to make 12 putouts. All three outfielders had at least one sensational grab. Leftfielder Flinn had all three putouts in the third, including reaching above the fence to rob a potential homer. Centerfielder Brendan Parisotto and rightfielder Matt Iannone made back-to-back outs on diving catches in the sixth. Many others came on well-hit line drives.

"This is probably the best outfield I've ever had defensively," said Dulin, in his eighth season at the school. "I have three centerfielders out there that can really run stuff down."

Advancing to the semifinals for the fourth time since 2010, North Andover (12-10) plays the winner of yesterday afternoon's game between top-seeded Gloucester (19-2) and ninth-seeded Belmont (13-9) at a time to be announced Wednesday at Lynn's Fraser Field.

"We expected this," Lee said of the playoff run. "We don't think it's much of a surprise. We knew we were a good team going in."